Barcombe Playgroup Trustees Annual Report
Report of the Trustee for the year ending 31[st] August 2020.
Our playgroup.
We are a small village playgroup set in the heart of rural Sussex, who provides both education and childcare for children aged 2-5years.
We are based in Barcombe Village Hall, East Sussex, with a dedicated, enclosed outdoor space for our children, surrounded by fields.
Our aim is to nurture our pre-school children’s development through play and we are very lucky to be based in an area where we can regularly engage the children with the nature around them.
Our Team
We have 6 members of staff working with our children at Barcombe playgroup. Last year we started with 25 children registered to attend playgroup, which increased to 45 by Christmas 2019.
Our playgroup follows the early year’s foundation curriculum framework and has the ethos of children learning through play. We are also members of the pre-school learning alliance.
Each child is assigned a keyworker at enrolment and they are then free to discuss any concerns with the key worker, or another other member of our team as required.
Learning journals are made for every child each year and these are readily available for parents, guardians or carers to take home throughout the year.
Our aim is to provide a safe learning environment for the children with as much outdoor play as possible and a warm, friendly and open environment for the parents and carers of each child.
Our Trustee
Our trustee consist of the Playgroup Supervisor and parents of the playgroup, who have had or currently have children at Barcombe Playgroup. Our Trustee, give up their time and are keen to ensure the future success and longevity of our playgroup.
All parents are invited to attend the Annual General meeting held in October to become part of the committee.
It is all voluntary commitment and anyone is eligible to become a member. We only ask that trustee must be able to make at least 2 out of the 3 meetings held each year.
Trustees are elected at our annual general meeting in October and then able to help run playgroup over the coming year
All our trustee are DBS and Ofsted registered and comply with the charities commission trustee act.
Our year.
Well, what a year we have had! We started our year with reduced number of children and conscious that we had also made a financial loss in the previous year.
Our aims for the year were to increase the number of children attending our playgroup and also to try and raise some money to keep our rural playgroup running.
Barcombe playgroup fundraising committee was developed to help facilitate the fund raising process. Cake sales were arranged and at Christmas time we had a very successful Christmas raffle and sold hand painted wrapping paper and gift tag made by the children.
The children over the winter term had enjoyed regular visits to our local school sports hall, Barcombe Church of England Primary School, where they were able to visit the local school setting and regularly meet Mrs Whittle, the reception class teacher. This helps facilitates the transition of children from playgroup to school, so they become familiar with the school they may attend over a gradual period of time.
Our playgroup staff walk the children to and from school for this outing every Wednesday. All 2-4 year olds walk 20 minutes through the village to the school, even in the rain. We have also continued to be invited to the schools key stage one nativity production in December, which enables further experiences within the school environment.
The children often have siblings at school, so it can be very exciting for all involved to see Barcombe playgroup entering the school playground!
We also continued to have fortnightly visits from Universal Dance throughout the year with Mrs Lloyd. The children have a fantastic experience of moving, dancing and singing along to music. This helps their balance and coordination and they are always very excited when they know it is a ‘dance day’.
Regular baking sessions, art and craft sessions have been undertaken throughout the first 6 months of the year, with fantastic homemade gifts and crafts regularly coming home.
Our Christmas party was a huge hit with all the children, who had a fantastic time with their friends.
Over the Christmas holidays, two sets of parents donated and installed a new outdoor pirate ship for playgroup, for which we are very thankful.
We started the New Year full of hope and excitement, with new ideas for fundraising emerging, especially for around Easter time.
Whilst life initially continued as normal, we were soon struck with the enormity of the Coronavirus. We took the decision in line with department of education and government’s advice to close playgroup on 20[th] March 2020. We had only one child with two key worker parents, who had other childcare in place – so we were able to close playgroup.
Whilst it was heart-breaking for all concerned, all parents and staff understood the decisions made. Staff were sent home on full pay and no parental fees were collected during the time we were closed.
Mrs Lloyd provided dance sessions via Zoom for any children who wanted to join and families kept in close contact with playgroup via the private closed facebook group.
At the end of May 2020, we made the decision, in line with the local primary school to re-open playgroup in the middle of June 2020.
Staff were all asked if they would be prepared to come back to work and thankfully everyone returned.
PPE, cleaning facilities and hand gel was provided for all, but facemasks were not required at that time.
Polices were written and we introduced stagger drop off times with children kept in two bubbles as per the guidance from the Department of Education. Luckily we have two separate rooms at playgroup and lots of outdoor space – so our bubbles were relatively easy.
Initially, it was the children who would be transiting to primary school who attended for the first week. An apprehensive start occurred on the 15[th] June but most of the children returned and were happy to be back.
The following week, any child whose parents wanted them to return to playgroup came back. Older children were dropped off at 8.45 with the younger bubble being dropped off at 9am.
This worked incredibly well and the village hall committee, where playgroup is based, gave us sole use of the Hall for the last 6 weeks of the summer term.
We did not run playgroup on Fridays, to allow for a deep clean of the facilities and toys.
We had a great return and all the children were happy to be with their friends again. Although the term was short, it gave everyone the confidence in playgroup being able to run smoothly in such different circumstances. To the credit of the playgroup staff and parents we did not have a single case of Covid 19 over that time.
Sadly were like the rest of the country were unable to have our annual outing and end of term BBQ, but all the children leaving playgroup were warmly wishes off to pastures new!
This year has been an incredible journey for all the staff and parents of playgroup but we have become a stronger community unit for it. The children are the true heroes of our playgroup, who took every change thrown at them in their stride, with a beaming smile on their faces.
Our Finances.
Our accounts as prepared are for the year ending 31[st] July 2020 .
This year Barcombe playgroup made a profit of £7,000. The accounts have been audit and submitted with this report to the charities commission.
This was a combination of increased attendance, funding raising, reduced outgoings due to Covid 19 and the generosity of our Local Village Hall committee, who did not ask us for rent during the closure period and did not charge us rent until September 2020, when we returned for the summer term.
For this we will be eternally grateful. It has meant that we were able to keep Barcombe Playgroup afloat and pay all our staff full wages, even when closed.
We also have a reserve account, which contains £45,740 . This allows for two terms wages, one full year of rent and a 5% contingency, in the event of unprecedented circumstances.
Overview
Our chaotic year has come to a close and brought us closer together, as rural community, than we could have ever thought possible.
The children shone brightly throughout the year and showed their true resilience in the face of change throughout the Spring and Summer of 2020.
I have the upmost respect for the Playgroup supervisor and her staff, who worked tirelessly to ensure we were able to re-open playgroup in a safe and friendly environment for all.
We will return to Playgroup stronger in September 2020, to see what the next year has to offer us!
Helen Button
Chairperson.
Barcombe Playgroup
2019/2020
| August September October November December January February March April May June July |
Income Expenditure Difference 5,759.15 5,054.81 704.34 4,579.73 7,688.17 -3,108.44 3,250.55 4,446.09 -1,195.54 6,198.48 4,217.91 1,980.57 7,609.72 4,855.69 2,754.03 7,580.37 7,005.83 574.54 6,737.84 4,525.38 2,212.46 7,544.18 9,146.88 -1,602.70 4,989.35 3,937.40 1,051.95 5,182.95 4,024.60 1,158.35 5,546.90 4,760.13 786.77 5,758.05 4,021.98 1,736.07 70,737.27 63,684.87 7,052.40 |
Wages Pension 5,087.40 48.96 4,286.01 30.98 4,179.40 30.98 4,112.90 48.96 4,236.07 30.98 4,009.10 23.12 4,115.37 27.29 3,976.55 23.12 3,976.55 23.12 3,976.55 22.64 4,017.20 22.64 4,017.20 22.64 |
|---|---|---|
| 49,990.30 355.43 |
PAYE PAID IN Sept, Dec, March, June
Bank Balances as of 24th July 2020
CAFCash Account 17,685.21 - this has the wages taken off and the Pension Contributions for Ju CAFGold Account 40,037.39 57,722.60
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