Barkham Preschool Chair’s Report 2021 Quora achieved - minimum 5 parents required
Hello Everyone,
Thanks so much for coming along today, we all really appreciate parents coming to find out a bit more about Pre-School and what the committee and staff team are doing.
I’m Sarah, the Chair of the committee, and I’d like to firstly give you an overview of last year, and our plans for this year.
During Autumn and Spring of the academic year 22/23, Sarah H was on maternity leave - and Helen and Louise stepped up in her place. I want to say a big thankyou to Helen and Louise, and Hannah and Lindsey for your hard work and perseverance. Also a welcome back to Sarah who rejoined us in May 23.
The committee team was also operating at a reduced capacity in 22/23, with myself, Kristin and Ellie continuing the work, and our new committee members Iona, Anna, Laura, Debby and volunteer Zoe joining later in the year.
We held our Christmas fair last year, which raised funds for Pre-School, and we also had our Easter raffle, stall at the NMR summer fete and end of year photographs. The summer stall was a success, with committee members and parents helping out making it a fun and successful day for fundraising.
Thankyou to parents and families for supporting us in our fundraising activities, we really couldn’t do it without you.
We decided to end our voluntary monetary donations scheme due to lack of interest, and to try and prevent impact on Pre-School financially we returned to donation requests of physical items needed by the children.
In regards to business, it was a quiet year for Pre-School in terms of numbers, with spaces remaining available through the year - advertising on local groups and with flyers was implemented to try and fill our spaces.
A minimum wage increase had to be implemented in April, and a pay increase was reviewed and implemented for staff at the same time.
Now for the coming year
Sarah is established back in her role as supervisor, and Lindsey has been made a permanent member of the team alongside Louise, Hannah and our deputy, Helen.
Our Committee is also changing - Ellie stepped down in December ‘22, and myself and Kristin are stepping down as Chair and Secretary today.
I’m pleased to announce our new committee - who will be sharing responsibilities across the group. Laura, Iona, Anna, Debby, Joy and Zoe, with Sarah H and Helen as staff
representatives. Joy will be our treasurer, Iona will be our Secretary and Laura will be our Chair representative to Ofsted, with responsibilities of the Chair shared amongst the group.
Our committee is crucial for the running of Pre-School - essentially as we’re an unincorporated charity we can’t be open without one! All our current committee members have children who will be going to school next September - so in order for Pre-School to be open next year we really need your help. Even if you can only attend the occasional meeting, or occasionally help out, as the more parents input we get the more we can improve and grow - so please do contact us if you’re interested in lending a hand.
We are currently in a good position for spaces this year, with minimal spaces available on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. However this could change, so advertising and promotion of Pre-School is still required.
The committee have already got a date in for a Christmas Fair, and a table top sale will be held at the end of the day today. We’d really like to focus on building more of a community feel this year, and letting parents get to know each other, so we will be running events and activities with this in mind - such as group meet ups or walks with the children, and evening activities.
In summer, we want to get involved in having stalls at more fairs, as this is a good way to get fundraising from the general public and promote Pre-School in the community.
If anyone has any ideas for fundraising, or anything you’d like to see us do to improve PreSchool this academic year, please have a chat with us!
Thankyou
Sarah Sowerby October 2023
Income
We had a total income of approximately £69,000, a £14k reduction from the previous year.
This was made up of circa £55,000 of government funding, £11,000 of fees, £1,172 of fundraising and £1,500 of donations.
Unfortunately we were not full, which had a resultant drop in income in fees (of c4k from 2022) and funding (of c9k from 2022).
In addition to not being full, in previous years we have had children in setting with an EHCP, which attracted additional funding.
A fee increase was last implemented in March 2020 and fees have been held stable since then to ensure that Pre-School remains competitive and accessible to all. A vote to increase fees by 10% was taken by the committee in April ‘23 and will be implemented in September 23.
We also saw the continuation of the donation scheme, where funded hours children are asked for a voluntary donation towards the running of Pre-School. The take-up on this has reduced greatly, from nearly £5k in 2021 to only £1.4k.. The decision was made by the committee after parent feedback to discontinue this voluntary monetary donation scheme and instead encourage physical donations from parents to reduce expenditure. This change was implemented in April ‘23.
Fundraising didn’t meet expectations - which is budgeted at around £2k per year. This is due to a number of factors, low numbers of parents, small committee and poor uptake on events and raffles.
Expenditure
We had an expenditure of approximately £74,000. This is slightly higher than the previous year (by £2k)
Our largest expenditure is on wages, at approx £69,000. Wages increased by approx 10% on the previous year due to minimum wage increases in April ‘21.
Spend was down on previous years in other areas such as consumables and equipment.
All staff wages were increased again in line with the increase in the minimum wage at the beginning of April ‘23. As our financial year accounts up to the end of May ‘23 the impact of this can’t yet be seen, however the wage increase is expected to increase our expenditure in this area next year by £4,500 a year.
Staff numbers were kept in line with required ratios, Sarah H was on maternity leave, and Helen and Louise’s salaries were increased to cover their standing as Supervisor and deputy. Shelley continued to be paid as bank staff, and Lindsey was brought into the team to cover Sarah’s absence. When Nicole left in December ‘23, the role was advertised and Lindsey was made permanent in January 2023.
Rent for the hall also increased in April ‘22, the bigger impact of this will be seen next year.
We also saw the payment of the garden improvements of £7,500 during this financial year, which was paid for by fundraising in previous financial years.
Overview and pointers for year 22/23
Pre-School saw a negative net differential of £13,800 last academic year. This was mainly due to the following factors:
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£7,500 on the garden upgrade (paid for by positive differentials last year)
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£6,000 increase in wages expenditure (due to 2021 wages increase)
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£9,000 reduction in funding income (due to not being full / no EHCP students)
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£4,000 reduction in fees (due to not being full)
Due to positive differentials in previous years (£11k in 2022 and £17k in 2021), PreSchool is still in a strong financial position.
The key elements to be focussed on from a financial perspective are..
Opportunities
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Fees have been increased in September ‘23 by 10% so our funding income will increase
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The number of 2year olds in the group has increased from 4 to 8, 2 year olds receive more funding per hour so our income from funding will increase
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Approximately £4k is owed to Pre-School from the HMRC from SMP payouts which will be received this academic year
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There are currently spaces at Pre-School which means that these need to be filled to maximise income
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Fundraising to be increased to build a community and complete improvement projects
Risks / Threats
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Wages were increased in April ‘23 - the impact is expected to be £4.5k per year
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The Hall rent continues to be a financial risk for us - we currently pay only a small percentage of the normal fee for rent of the hall due to the fact that PreSchool has been part of the hall for so long.
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The government scheme to increase funding for 2 and 3yos will mean that more children are funded rather than fee paying, which will reduce our income in this area
Supervisor’s Report
Thank you to all of you for coming today, and for the continued support you have shown us in the last year.
For me, last year was a very different year for me. As most of you know, I was away on maternity leave from September 2022 when I welcomed my 3rd child, Lennie. Although I was officially on leave, I was still very much involved with pre-school. I used all of my keeping in touch days and enjoyed coming into pre-school and returning to my norm throughout my leave.
Walking away from preschool completely for 9 months was not an option for me. I wholeheartedly trust my whole staff team, I do however have difficulty taking a break. Since joining Barkham I have put so much into pre-school and I am so passionate about how preschool runs and engages with our families and local communities that I just have to be involved – sometimes much to my husband's dismay!
Helen and Louise stepped up to their new cover roles of acting supervisor and acting deputy supervisor. They both took on these roles with enthusiasm and passion and both Sarah Sowerby and I were clear that they were in no way alone whilst I was away – which I think they soon realised with my persistent involvement!
Both Helen and Louise did a fantastic job and without them being here for the day to day running of pre-school the last year could have gone down a different path.
Thank you both for your hard work and commitment during not only the last year but since you’ve joined us at Barkham. Thank you also to Hannah who, as always, continues to fulfil her roles at Barkham with pride and enthusiasm.
When I went on leave, we welcomed Lindsey to our team. Lindsey has gelled with the team since day one and the children all love her. Lindsey brings experience to our team, and she has, from day one, got straight in. Thank you, Lindsey.
This year we have been able to welcome back our much-loved stay and plays. We opened up our doors and invited family and friends to join us for our Pumpkin Party, Mother’s day stay and play and also Father’s day stay and play.
Stay and play are such lovely events where the children can really show off their pre-school and share what they love to do with their families.
We were also able to arrange a visit to St James at Christmas – this again is such a magical experience for the children, and it widens their learning by exploring different cultures and gives them an understanding that different people do different things. This fits in beautifully with the Early Learning goals for the children.
Parents were once again welcomed into pre-school for our Christmas singing. The Christmas singing has worked well for us at pre-school and is enjoyed by the children, staff and families.
Just before Christmas Helen had the call we’d all been waiting for – OFSTED. It was at this point that I felt really anxious! We had been waiting for them to call for such a long time. With me being a new supervisor, they should have come within my first year, we were also overdue. Helen handled everything perfectly and although I felt completely helpless, I was able to come in for feedback – Lennie came too! The feedback we had was good and we were really pleased to be awarded Good as a result of the inspection. I was upset, if that’s the right word, to have missed the inspection but I was completely confident
that our team would smash it – which they did.
Once again pre-school was closed due to local elections in May which meant we needed to find an alternative venue for the day – que our trip to Wellington! The trip was well attended and was enjoyed by all the children, staff and parents.
We ended the year with our leavers picnic which was, once again, hosted inside pre-school due to the lovely British weather! This was a lovely opportunity to say goodbye to all of our families that were leaving pre-school for primary school as well as welcome along our new families. The picnic was really well attended and fun was had by everyone.
I’d like to thank our committee, they have continued to support us throughout the year and now we have a new committee in place I look forward to working alongside them.
Lastly I’d like to say thank you to all our families, your wonderful children make our work so enjoyable – every day is different and we always have such a great time. We are all looking forward to the year ahead and making more memories with your super star children.
Sarah Horsgood, Supervisor
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