2024-08-31-accounts - Woodborough Pre-School Playgroup

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Woodborough Village Preschool

Reference and administration details

Charity name Woodborough Village Pre-school

Other names the charity is known by Woodborough Pre-school Playgroup

Registered charity no 1030313

Charity’s principal address Woodborough Village Hall, Lingwood Lane, Woodborough, Nottinghamshire, NG14 6DX

Trustees

Tim Ferriman - Chairman

Samantha Stevenson - Secretary

Steven Hawker - Treasurer

Lynsey Baugh

Sophie Trease-Somers

Joanne Hollier

Members Induction and Training

All new trustees are encouraged to read ‘The essential Trustee’ as an introduction to their duties and responsibilities. They also follow a formal induction process.

Names of senior sta� members

Jen Sargison – Manager

Elizibeth Maltby – Assistant Manager

Structure, governance and management

Governing document

2011 Constitution adopted in 2020.

How the charity is constituted

The charity is an Unincorporated Association with two kinds of membership:

Family membership:

Parents or guardians of children who attend the preschool and wish to support its aims;

Each family will count as one member and have one vote at any annual general meeting of the pre-school.

A�iliate membership:

Open to individuals, organisations, or other entities interested in supporting the aims of the pre-school;
A�iliate members may join at any time with committee agreement and will be entitled to one vote at any general meeting of the members of the preschool.

Trustee selection methods

Trustees are appointed or reappointed annually at the Annual General Meeting held in November. Up to two additional committee members may be co-opted during the year.

Additional governance issues

Woodborough Village Pre-school is a member of the Early Years Alliance.
Woodborough Village Pre-School rents the village hall from Woodborough parish council for its premises.
Woodborough Village Pre-school has a child protection policy in place.
Disclosure and barring checks are conducted on all sta� members before employment and on trustees before their tenure begins.
Trustees must apply to Ofsted to join the committee and be deemed suitable.

Objectives and activities

Summary of the objectives

To provide high-quality care and education for children below statutory school age;
To work in partnership with parents to assist children's learning and development;
To contribute to the life and well-being of the local community;
To o�er services that promote equality and value diversity.
Providing a variety of stimulating activities for children inside and outside that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.
Guiding children's development and learning based on The Early Years Foundation Stage (DfE 2014), which reflects the four guiding themes and principles.
Assigning each child a key person to ensure progress and collaboration with parents in the child's learning and development.

Maintaining the adult-to-child ratio set by the Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements, supplemented by volunteer parent helpers when possible.
Giving children opportunities to interact with others, participate in group activities, and engage in community events.
Operating as a community-based, voluntarily managed setting run by the parents of children attending the pre-school.

Achievements and performance (reporting year 2023-2024)

Introduction

Since joining the committee back in 2021, the focus of the preschool committee has been to drive change and adapt to numerous challenges. At times this has meant considerable input from the committee as it supported an almost entirely new team and changing management within the setting.

Over the last year, preschool has become much more settled, and the skills and experience of the sta� team have turned it into an increasingly strong setting with a huge amount to o�er local families and children. The team have taken back most of the dayto-day running and planning from the committee and its refreshing and exiting to hear about new plans and ideas at our regular committee meetings and then do what we can to help drive these forwards.

The number of children using the provision slowly continues to increase and more funding opportunities mean more families of children already enrolled are increasing their hours. However, we are acutely aware that that this trend must continue to secure the long-term viability of the preschool, and I will go into this further within my report.

Committee

The committee has remained largely unchanged for the last two years. It remains a challenge for any preschool to attract and maintain volunteer committee members. Whilst we do not expect any of the current committee to stand down at this stage, we remain hopeful that more current parents/carers of children in the setting will join the committee and share their experience with us moving forward.

On a personal note, as I no longer have children in the setting and with other time commitments, it would be my ideal intention to step down as chair of the committee over the course of the next year. I would however like to remain a trustee so I can o�er my support ongoing as and when a successor is found.

Sta� Update

Jen has been promoted to preschool manager and Liz to assistant manager. We recruited Kasha as an early years educator. Millie has almost completed her apprenticeship so will soon be a fully qualified practitioner. Sheila has split one of her full days into 2 half days to help cover the changing needs of the preschool.

Jen has kindly prepared an update which goes into further about sta� training

Number of Children

We have 27 children in attendance and another starting soon. We have good success with a high percentage of show arounds choosing the setting; and we find families are happy, children settle well and increase hours where funding or needs allow.

Woodborough Woods has now had its Ofsted inspection and is rated “Good”, in turn they are increasingly popular and have increased class sizes. The preschool has historically fed Woods, with parents appreciating the transition and links we can o�er. We would hope this has a positive impact.

However, the reality is that we do need more children in the setting to ensure the viability of the preschool moving forward. A full-time equivalent increase of 3-4 children will ensure our costs do not exceed our income and this matter remains the primary focus of the committee. We have sought to understand the circumstances and options available to us at this point.

Expenditure

In terms of our expenditure, we are extremely lucky to have Steve Hawker, our treasurer at the wheel as he has dissected our entire financial position and regularly prepares forecasts for di�erent scenarios, we’re extremely grateful for all Steves input and he will go into this in more detail separately.

We acknowledge we are technically over sta�ed from a ratio perspective, but the committee is satisfied that the team work well together, complement one another with their varied skill sets and ensure growth is possible within the setting. We are also proud of the planning and experience the team o�er the children attending the setting and are confident there should be no change there.

With a stronger control on our expenditure, the committee has voted to reduce the amount of reserve funds required to be held. This will allow investment to be made for as long as possible should income not rise to the necessary levels.

Income

Although there are limited fundraising opportunities, the way to drive increased income with a real impact is always going to be to increase number of children in the setting.

who can o�er a true all day, all year-round setting; it is noted that most day nursery type settings who can o�er this are indeed at full capacity.

Jen, Steve and I visited Lowdham Preschool last year who were in a precarious position financially due to low numbers of children. The setting is an interesting case study as they are also a charity, operate from a village hall and did so on a term time only basis. They subsequently transitioned to a full time setting and extended the age groups they could o�er care for; by doing so they have turned their financial situation around and were operating on a waiting list at the time of our visit.

would help, but have been limited in terms of the changes we can make

Extending the hours at the end of the day are not possible due to other users of the village hall. The Parish Council were clear they do not want the hall to be a preschool only provision.
Costs would increase immediately, whereas results are speculative
Our team is already small and further recruitment would be needed to cover holiday periods.
There would also be further rental costs for the hall if available
negotiate

Changes

We have however considered a compromise by opening earlier with a breakfast club provision which now opens at 8am and working more closely with Woods who are able to o�er after school provision until 6pm for children who are aged 3 or over. Woods also o�er a limited holiday club provision which is o�ered by Grade A Sports and available children aged 4 or over.

We have introduced hot school meals within the setting – this has been very popular and further closes the gap between our preschool and more traditional day nurseries. As a parent who sent both my children to Woodborough Village preschool I always felt the lack of this provision let the setting down so it’s wonderful to see it now in place and being used so extensively

The team have also been able to implement a number of long-standing suggestions from the committee wish list that we hope will help attract more families to find out about and visit our preschool.

The preschool is now very engaged in the community, regularly visiting play church and even running their own activity club on alternating weeks for younger children and their families who do not yet attend.

Preschools Social media presence has increased thanks to the endeavours of the preschool team, and we hope this helps more families find out about the activities, planning and ideas that make Woodborough Preschool a great place to send the children in their care.

Jen has provided separate updates on these for review.

The Future

“The preschool has been in existence since 1974 and like WFS has historically been oversubscribed and extremely popular.

More recently, the pandemic, increased competition, issues at WFS, a low birth rate and changing needs for childcare have all resulted in less children attending the setting, and this has been disheartening and stifled an appetite for growth and progression.

Unfortunately, this comes at a time when the importance of adapting and changing to meet the changing needs of the families the preschool serves has never been greater.

for early years childcare in the village and surrounding areas. The children are an absolute delight, WFS are fully vested in the preschool's success, our manager brings vision and a fresh approach, and our new sta� members help complete a wonderful team of individuals who can deliver the quality childcare that parents and carers expect, as well as a seamless transition into school (whether that's WFS or elsewhere)

We are privileged to be based in such a big open setting within the heart of the village, and with the park, woods, and fields right on our doorstep, activities such as forest school integrate seamlessly into the children's experience in the preschool.

The last year has undoubtably been tough, but the hard work means we now have solid foundations in place; if we can continue with the same drive and ambition, Woodborough Village Preschool has the potential to once again be the first choice for parents looking for caring, nurturing environment into which they entrust the care of their children.”

We have come a long way since I wrote that, the hard work has indeed paid o� and the solid foundations I referred to have allowed the preschool to grow into a place that I can confidently described as the default - or first - choice for parents looking for a high-quality childcare provision.

What we have not been able to do as quickly as I’d have liked is to overcome the wider reasons behind lower demand for the childcare, we are able to o�er. It will be the role of the committee and sta� to ensure the current upwards trajectory continues if we are to move into the 2025-26 school year with the positive outlook we are all hoping for.

Signed:

Date: 14 March 2025

Tim Ferriman Chair

Woodborough Village Preschool for the year ended 31 August 2024 Receipts and Payments Accounts

RECEIPTS Donations, JRS Grant Fees Fund Raising Fees paid by Notts County Council Interest recieved Vouchers Sundry Income HMRC PAYE refund Total Receipts PAYMENTS Advertising CRB Checks Parties Equipment & Books Consumables Professional fees Food Drink etc Fund Raising PAYE Subscriptions & Insurance Petty Cash Expenses Ink & Paper Other Office Costs Rent Sundries Telephone, Internet & Postage Training Uniform Pension contribution Wages Total Payments Surplus for the period Add:Cash Funds b/f Cash funds as at 31 Aug 2024		Unrestricted Funds 0 16,406 1,339 81,293 2,277 0 0 101,315 451 137 452 2,095 319 1,503 576 121 13,837 5,382 0 558 0 14,308 0 58 906 0 4,727 93,023 138,453 -37,138 98,378 61,240		Year ended 31 August 2024 Total Funds 0 16,406 1,339 81,293 2,277 0 0 101,315 451 137 452 2,095 319 1,503 576 121 13,837 5,382 0 558 0 14,308 0 58 906 0 4,727 93,023 138,453 -37,138 98,378 61,240		Year ended 31 August 2023 Total Funds 0 19,255 119 49,474 436 11,296 50 80,630 777 336 953 1,115 1,554 5,924 1,803 204 5,983 5,150 0 449 79 15,747 47 867 1,230 0 2,503 71,478 116,199 -35,569 133,947 98,378

Woodborough Village Preschool for the year ended 31 August 2024

Statement of Assets as at 31 August 2024

CASH FUNDS Lloyds Bank - Treasurers Account Lloyds Bank - Business Instant Account Lloyds Bank - Business Instant Account No 2 Cash Total Funds Approved by the Trustees and signed on the Trustees' behalf by: Mr T. Ferriman - Chair Dated: 14 March 2025		Year ended 31 August 2024 Unrestricted Funds Total Funds 8,733 8,733 52,440 52,440 0 0 67 67 61,240 61,240 Mr S. Hawker - Treasurer Dated: 14-Mar-25		Year ended 31 August 2023 Total Funds 12,807 84,314 1,190 67 98,378

Woodborough Village Preschool for the year ended 31 August 2024

Independent examiner's report to the trustees of Woodborough Village Preschool

I report on the accounts of the Trust for the period ended 31 August 2024 , which are set out on pages 8 to 9.

Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner

The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity's trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is needed.

It is my responsibility to:

examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act;

to follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act; and

to state whether particular matters have come to my attention.

Basis of independent examiner's report

My examination was carried out in accordance with the general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a 'true and fair view' and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.

Independent examiner's statement

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:

(1) which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements: to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act; and to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act

have not been met; or

(2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

A. Hodges FCIB PM.Dip

1 Buckland Drive Woodborough Nottinghamshire NG14 6EU

Dated: 14 March 2025