Oak Farm Preschool Annual Report
2024-2025
Oak Farm Community Preschool Registered Charity No 1032174
Ballantyne Road Farnborough
Hampshire
GU14 8SS
Charity Trustees Christine Guinness Committee Chairperson Fiona Von Mollendorf Committee Treasurer Kim Ryan Committee member Diane Kewley Committee Member
Accountant: Lee Preston
Preschool school manager; Mrs Sara Small from October 2017
Preschool Deputy manager; Mrs Jennie Coughlan from March 2023.
We are a parent/committee run preschool with well qualified staff. This consists of a manager, deputy, Sendco, behaviour management practitioner and practitioners. We have close links with the Pre -school Learning Alliance and the Foundation Stage Cluster Groups.
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.
Within our preschool we select a Chairperson, Treasurer and Secretary; we ask for members to come forward, and they are nominated and seconded by other members of the committee, who are all volunteers/ parents/ex parents or members of the local community.
During this year we have run 190 sessions and by January we will be taking 28 children per day. We still provide the wraparound service offering childcare from 08.30 – 3.30pm. We also take children who are eligible for 2-year funding, and the 3 and 4 year funding.
We also have children who receive the extended hours funding. We have currently 7 children on the 30-hour funding with a few more parents who have expressed interest in the longer hours. 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. We pride ourselves that we offer good quality affordable childcare in a home from home environment.
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We continually strive to have open and transparent relationships with all our parents and ensure we give out accurate and informative information. This could be about funding, or to even offer listening ears to parents when they need additional support.
Despite our current cohort of families not expressing the need for us further extending our hours we regularly check in with our families to check what their needs are and to continually review our daily practice. However, we are continuing to offer the 30-hour funding as we want to offer the service to our parents. Especially in the current economic cost of living crisis.
The 30-hour funding is still not being taken up to its full potential however we are hoping this will improve in time as some parents/carers are still confused as to what this is. As usual this will be monitored and reviewed by the management team and committee and hours dropped or added as necessary.
Although many staff have stayed the same, we are currently about to advertise for a qualified new member of staff to join the team. Through continued and consistent professional development courses, all staff are encouraged to add to their personal achievements, and this shows in their care and love for the job. Our level 3 apprentice is successfully coming to the end of her course and will soon be fully qualified. We are very proud of her and continue to promote staff’s interests in courses to build on their interests and experiences.
Signed on behalf of the charity trustees.
Chairperson; Christine Guinness Treasurer; Fiona Von Mollendorf
12/01/2026