Oak Farm Preschool Annual Report
2021 - 2022
Oak Farm Community Preschool Registered Charity No 1032174 Ballantyne Road Farnborough Hampshire GU14 8SS Charity Trustees Christine Guinness Chairperson Fiona Von Mollendorf Committee treasurer Kerry Doody Committee member Kim Ryan Committee member Sara Small Committee member
Accountant: Lee Preston
Preschool school manager ; Mrs Diane Hutchinson from January 2022-March 2022/
Mrs Sara Small March 22 onwards
Preschool Deputy Manager; Miss Kirsty Kendall from Nov 2021
We are a small home from home committee run preschool that has been established for over 40 years. Our committee members consist of ex staff members and parents.
We have had a change in staff over the last year but still offer a warm and friendly atmosphere to all families. Our staffing consists of a manager, deputy, Senco/behaviour management practitioner and practitioners. We have close links with the Preschool Learning Alliance and the Foundation Stage Cluster Groups in our local areas.
Our staff members are all qualified and continue to update their skills and training on a regular basis mostly through virtual and online courses. Since Covid we have seen a decline in all areas of our Early years foundation stage curriculum especially speech and language development so staff are updating their knowledge to accommodate this. Working closely with parents and families to enable all the children to achieve their full potential.
We annually adopt the Constitution from The Preschool Alliance as our governing document. We have a full range of governing policies, all of which are adopted annually by as committee and always accessible to all parents either in paper form or by accessing them online at any convenient time.
During this year we have run 190 sessions and have a handful of children who are using the 30 hour funding available to working parents. The majority of our families live in the local area and are in receipt of 2 year funding and or three year Government funding. We still continue the wraparound
service offering childcare from 08.30 – 2.30pm. The preschool is based in a considered area of deprivation and with that in mind we try to keep the fees at an affordable rate for all families. For us being able to offer good quality affordable childcare in a home from home environment is what matters.
We are always giving out information to parents on the different funding available and the criteria to be eligible especially where the different funding is concerned. We are continuing to offer the 30 hour funding as we want to offer the service to our parents. However we do realise this initially may be at a loss to us as it is still not being taken up to its fullest capacity. We have found some parents are not sure of the criteria to be eligible or would like to receive it but do not work enough hours to get it.
We do offer extra sessions when we have them and parents pay for the fees if they take extra hours. This is dependent on who is off on that day through illness or holidays etc. Since Covid we are aware of the financial struggles families are facing and the higher prices of food. However, we still supply snack for the children as we know how important this is especially for families that are really struggling with their finances.
We have put a few of our families in touch with local food banks and also given out food care packages where we can as well as being their for parents that have struggled with their mental health during the past 18 months. Trying to offer a listening ear and to signpost parents to where they can get more help.
We are a small setting and feel we are a depended and necessary service provider to all of our families in the local deprived area. The majority of staff live in the local community and together we genuinely care about the families and neighbourhood.
Signed on behalf of the charity trustees;
Chairperson; Christine Guinness Treasurer; Fiona Von Mollendorf
10.01.23