2021-08-31-accounts - Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre

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Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre (Registered charity, number 1019457) Financial statements for the year ended 31 August 2021

Page	Contents
2 - 7	Trustees’ annual report
8	Independent examiner’s report
9	Receipts & payments account
10	Statement of assets & liabilities
11	Notes to the accounts

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre Trustees’ annual report for the year ended 31 August 2021

Full name Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre

Registered charity number 1019457

Principal address

Derwent Crescent, Arnold, Nottingham, NG5 6TA

Trustees

Emma Quero, Chair Robert Parrish Claire de Motte, Vice Chair Lydia Allister, from 11/11/21 Nampreet Kandola, Treasurer Helen Fell, from 19/11/21 Hannah Parrish, Secretary

Independent examiner

John O’Brien, employee of Community Accounting Plus, Units 1 & 2 North West, 41 Talbot Street, Nottingham, NG1 5GL

Governance and management

The charity is operated under the rules of its constitution adopted on 29[th] October 2014 and most recently amended 17[th] November 2020.

New trustees are appointed at the Annual General Meeting. Up to three members can be co-opted by the committee in between AGMs, or more by agreement with the Early Years Alliance.

Objectives and activities

The principal objects of the charity are:

To enhance the development and education of children primarily under statutory school age by encouraging parents to understand and provide for the needs of their children through community groups and by:

(a) Offering appropriate play, education and care facilities, family learning and extended hours groups, together with the right of parents to take responsibility for and to become involved in the activities of such groups, ensuring that such groups offer opportunities for all children whatever their race, culture, religion, means or ability;
(b) Encouraging the study of the needs of such children and their families and promoting public interest in and recognition of such needs in the local areas;
(c) Instigating and adhering to and furthering the aims and objects of the PreSchool Learning Alliance.

Public benefit statement

The Trustees confirm that they have complied with the duty in section 17 of the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit, 'Charities and Public Benefit'.

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre

Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit

Weaverthorpe Pre-School provides term-time sessional day care for children aged 2 - 5 years from 9am - 3.30pm Monday to Friday. It is a well-respected pre-school with a waiting list of children that would like a place at the setting in the future. Weaverthorpe provides high quality childcare for the local community and constantly strives to excel in all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage of the curriculum. The setting achieved a 'Good' Ofsted rating in July 2013 and has retained this rating in an inspection in December 2016.

Weaverthorpe Pre-School is committed to making the setting inclusive and accessible to all children and to ensuring that children are able to reach their full potential. All children have the right to the Early Years Foundation Stage and all staff have a duty to meet the needs of all the children attending the setting. With this ethos in mind, Weaverthorpe Pre-School continues to support those children with special educational needs by providing additional support and resources as required.

We offer free Government funded hours to eligible 2, 3 and 4 year olds. We sometimes receive additional payments for eligible children - such as Inclusion Funding and EHCP (both special needs) and also Child Protection Plan funding - but these have not been applicable this school year. For parents paying for sessions, we offer flexible payment arrangements. Our fee rates are set to cover our running expenses and to ensure an adequate reserve within the parameters of our reserves policy.

Weaverthorpe Pre-School provides education for children from 2 – 5 years old and adheres to Nottinghamshire County Council’s guidelines and Ofsted’s development matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.

It is the setting’s intention to make Weaverthorpe genuinely accessible to children and families from all sections of the local/wider community. Through policies and practices, it is clear that Weaverthorpe welcomes fathers, mothers, other relations and other carers, including child minders, and people from all cultural, ethnic, religious and social groups with or without disabilities. We make our equal opportunities policy widely known.

Summary of the main achievements during the period

The Pre-School continues to be well supported by parents and the local community. We have good links with the local Infant and Junior Schools which helps the children with their transition to those schools.

During the period we provided education and care to between 33 and 49 different children on roll at any one time for a total of over 32,000 hours over the year. Numbers were not as high as previous years. However, the Pre-School did manage to remain open for families throughout this year, despite the difficulties presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Our staffing levels remained broadly the same as in the previous period with two leavers and one new member successfully recruited. We continue to offer a high staff to pupil ratio within the setting.

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre

The 2020-2021 school year was extremely challenging for most Early Years providers. Like others, we had to abandon face-to-face events, drop new starter visits and taster sessions and find different ways to fundraise. All the staff rose to the challenge and offered activities and support to parents via Tapestry (online learning portal), we recorded our Christmas concert as an in-house video (as church with parents was not allowed!), went cashless with payments and put together a welcome video to promote to new parents when non-essential visitors were not allowed into the building.

In line with government guidance, new risk assessments were implemented, and our staff guidance document for the day to day running of the Pre-School was updated.

Some in-house activities that continued to take place included: Sign of the week, Show and tell (using objects within Pre-School) and sessions with our Language Lead who continued to promote speech and language at Weaverthorpe.

All staff attended or undertook a wide variety of training courses including:

Outdoors on a budget;
Domestic abuse;
Safer settings for the designated safeguarding lead;
Paediatric first aid;
Role of the early years SEND practitioner;
Making the most of your learning walk for Ofsted;
The new EYFS for September 2021;
Tapestry webinars;
Language lead networks;
SENCO networks;
Provider network and manager briefings;
Network meetings for schools and PVI settings;
Continued professional development for all staff ongoing throughout the school year.

As a setting we continue to be supported by a number of outside agencies including the Early Years Alliance and Early Years Specialist Teachers from Nottinghamshire County Council, and including SALT (for speech and language), and health visitors.

This is our 15th year of operating from our current premises. A new lease was signed in 2016 which guarantees our use of the premises until 2024.

Financial review

This year the Pre-School appears to have made a large loss but there is some explanation for this figure. As reported in the previous Trustees Annual Report, Nottinghamshire County Council made an early funding payment in August 2020 to help support providers who may be struggling with cashflow due to the pandemic. This Autumn term payment would usually be received in September. As a result the funding payment of around £41,500, fell into last year’s accounts and inflated the income for 2019/2020. The deficit in this year’s accounts is simply a balancing out of the early funding payment.

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre

There was also substantial outlay of £9,216 this school year on essential building repairs and new equipment. This included: roof repairs (£6,264), computer expenses and new laptops (£1,200), garden revamp (£982), a new intruder alarm (£532) and new office equipment including a contactless card reader (£238). Many of these expenses offer long-term value for the business and should not have to be repurchased any time soon.

Since the national lockdown in March 2020, we have experienced lower pupil numbers throughout this school year. There has been reduced funding/fees income as a result. New parents have been more hesitant about starting children at Pre-School (with some deferring places) and there have been far fewer new admission enquiries. Despite the reduced pupil numbers, we have still had the same staff wages and operating expenses to cover.

We received a small amount of support from the local council who continued to offer a business rates holiday for much of this school year.

There are various ways that income could be increased. These include building up pupil numbers, extra fundraising, applying a termly/yearly charge for snacks and activity materials and grants. Pre-School will also be looking at ways to minimise outgoings and reduce staffing costs (if over staffed for pupil numbers across the year).

With all things considered, Pre-School would have had a relatively small loss of approx. £5k, had it not been for the early funding payment last year and the additional building repairs and other expenses detailed earlier.

We are pleased to report that Pre-School continues to hold sufficient funds at the end of the reporting period. The levels in all the reserves accounts have been maintained.

The redundancy reserves fund has been reviewed this year and is still considered adequate.

The charity’s policy on reserves

Weaverthorpe Pre-School has a redundancy provision and it has reserves that would cover the running of the Pre-School for 3 months if necessary.

The committee adopted its reserves policy in November 2016 and it is reviewed annually.

The Reserves Policy states the requirement for reserves for the following purposes:

a) to ensure the continuation of provision to the children attending the pre-school, including 3 months working costs - estimated required reserve £35,500; b) to cover redundancy payments to staff - estimated required reserve £35,825; c) to ensure sufficient funds are available for the maintenance/replacement of the building - estimated required reserve £30,000;

d) to cover unforeseen additional expenses - estimated required reserve £5,000.

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre

There is no longer a reserves requirement for matched funding (used to be required for some grants). So this element was removed from the policy when it was last reviewed in 2021.

Reserves are to be built up from the unrestricted (earned) income. The level of reserves is to be calculated and monitored every 12 months. The Reserves Policy is to be reviewed yearly and whenever there are significant changes in staff hours or numbers.

At the end of the period the balance of accounts met the requirements of the Reserves Policy.

Funding

Our main source of funding received is from Nottinghamshire County Council in respect of Government funding. This includes: 15 hours funding for 3 and 4 year olds (universal entitlement), 15 hours funding for eligible 2 year olds (means tested/linked to qualifying benefits), 30 hours funding for 3 and 4 year olds (extended hours for qualifying working families), Pupil Premium monies and inclusion funding (for special needs).

Parents’ fees and monies from a program of fundraising events make up the remainder of our regular income. The Pre-school applies for and receives grants on an ad hoc basis from local or national funders to meet specific needs such as the replacement of equipment or enhancement of the setting.

Risks

During the school year 2020/2021, parents have continued to be much more hesitant to take up places due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been a huge slow down with parent show-rounds (not allowed due to restrictions), no taster sessions allowed and far fewer new enquiries for the Pre-School waiting list.

Numbers on the roll for the start of the new academic year 2021/2022 are reasonably strong and can hopefully be built up quickly now that many restrictions are easing and parents are gaining in confidence.

The level of government funding for the childcare sector continues to be a big concern. The current rates are considered widely insufficient across the industry. Organisations such as the Early Years Alliance continue to campaign for better funding for early years providers.

Staff costs continue to rise in line with National Minimum Wage increases. Each annual hike is usually quite significant - in April 2020 the National Living Wage for over-23s jumped up 6.2%. The following year, it rose more conservatively at 2.2% for over-25s. The Pre-School tries to give a fair percentage increase across all employees. However, each year it becomes harder to maintain the differentials between the staff pay bands.

We increased our hourly fee rate by 10p this year in order to maintain fair and competitive pricing for local families. So far we have not had to cross-subsidise (charge

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre

parents for snacks, materials etc.) but we continue to monitor the situation to ensure that the funding we receive is sufficient to meet our running costs.

Going forwards, the business rates holiday is set to end for Early Years providers but will continue to be discounted by 66% until 31 March 2022. There are other future considerations that will increase outgoings. These include higher utility charges and the new Health and Social Care Levy (effective from April 2022) which is a 1.25% tax paid by both employer and employee.

Numbers on the waiting list are lower so will have to be quickly built up during the new school year to increase funding/fees income.

There is uncertainty over how the pandemic will affect the setting over the longer term. Many pre-schools are closing, or laying off staff, due to the drop in income and insufficient reserves. Weaverthorpe is fortunate that it currently has sufficient reserves built up from previous years.

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:

Signed ______ Date _ 21/02/2022 Claire de Motte, Trustee

Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre for the year ended 31 August 2021

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre (the charity) for the year ended 31 August 2021.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the trustees of the charity you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).

I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
the accounts do not accord with those records.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed ____ Date _______ 22/02/2022 John O’Brien MSc, FCCA, FCIE Employee of Community Accounting Plus

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre Receipts & payments account for the year ended 31 August 2021

2020			*2021*
£		Note	£
	Receipts
189634	Grants & donations	2	95886
1336	Fundraising		1433
9700	Fees		9605
171	Bank interest		11
553	Activity contributions		388
-	Rates refund		170
201394	Total receipts		107493
	Payments
1127	Activities, garden & trips		115
317	Bank charges		307
808	Children's books & equipment		1339
-	Computer expenses		1232
2157	Consumables		1745
68	DBS checks		64
812	Equipment, repairs & renewals		41
494	Fundraising expenditure		320
205	Hospitality & food		-
636	Independent examination fee		648
1186	Insurance		1031
140	Marketing		49
874	Payroll service		886
12381	Premises maintenance & cleaning		9650
787	Publications & subscriptions		30
602	Rent & rates		37
995	Staff expenses & uniform		559
1212	Staff training & travel		450
-	Sundry payments		151
2815	Telephone, stationery & postage		2147
1096	Utilities		1872
141809	Wages, NI & pension		140458
170521	Total payments		163131
30873	Net receipts/(payments)		(55638)
159610	Cash funds at start of this period		190483
190483	Cash funds at end of this period		134845

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre Statement of assets and liabilities at 31 August 2021

2020 £ Cash assets Note 190432 Bank accounts 51 Cash in hand 190483 Other monetary assets 1016 Prepayments 3 1016 Assets retained for the charity’s own use Laptops x 2 purchased April 2021, cost £1,100. Pram shelter purchased June 2017, cost £2,753. Play blocks purchased Feb 2016, cost £732. General equipment. (2282) Creditors 4 (41518) Advance receipts - Notts County Council grant (43800)	*2021* £ 134700 145
	134845
	1048
	1048
	(2189) (11044)
	(13233)

These financial statements are accepted on behalf of the charity by:

Signed _____ Dated _____ 21/02/2022 Nampreet Kandola, Trustee

Weaverthorpe Pre-School Centre Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31 August 2021

1. Receipts & payments accounts

Receipts and payments accounts contain a summary of money received and money spent during the period and a list of assets and liabilities at the end of the period. Usually, cash received and cash spent will include transactions through bank accounts and cash in hand.

2. Grants & donations

Grants & donations
Nottinghamshire County Council Prepayments Insurance Publications & subscriptions Telephone, stationery & postage Utilities	£ 95886 95886 £ 625 214 109 100
	1048

3. Prepayments

4. Creditors

Children's equipment Independent examination Premises maintenance Telephone, stationery & postage Utilities	£ 462 648 66 202 811
	2189

5. Premises

There is a lease with Nottinghamshire County Council up until 2024 for the premises on a peppercorn rent. This lease was agreed in July 2016.

6. Trustees’ remuneration

Trustees received no expenses, remuneration or benefits in this period.

7. Glossary of terms

Advance receipts: These are amounts received by the charity in the accounting period, for use in a future period.

Creditors: These are amounts owed by the charity, but not paid during the accounting period.

Prepayments: These are services that the charity has paid for in advance, but not used during the accounting period.