Annual return for the year from September 1st 2019 to August 31st 2020
Aims and area of operation:
The aim of the Preschool is to provide a safe, stimulating environment for the care and education of children from the ages of two to five. We operate from rented premises in the Wollaton area of Nottingham and welcome children from Wollaton and the surrounding areas.
Sessions run every weekday during Nottingham City term time from 9.00 – 12.00 and 12.00 – 15.00 each day; with the option of a breakfast club from 8.15 until 9.00 and a lunch club from 12.00 until 13.00 for those attending the morning session. Children can stay all day from 8.15 or 9.00 until 15.00 if they choose.
There were 61 children on roll this year and we are registered to accommodate up to 35 in any one session. We have two rooms in operation, ‘Acorns’ for two year olds and ‘Oaks’ for three to five year olds.
Registration Details:
Charity Number: 1033374.
Registered Office: Kingswood Methodist Church, Lambourne Drive, Wollaton, Nottingham NG8 1GR.
We are also registered with the Early Years Alliance and OFSTED.
For details of our OFSTED reports, please use the unique reference number 254678. Our last rating by Ofsted was in April 2018, and we were rated ‘good’ in all areas.
We also operate under the close supervision and with the support of the Nottingham City Council Early Years Team, who facilitate funding for a proportion of our children (generally around 60-65% of the total in attendance). Parents and carers can also pay fees on a private basis if their children are not yet eligible for this funding.
Management of the Preschool
The Preschool is managed by a voluntary management committee, primarily made up of parents and carers of children attending the Preschool, along with staff representation.
Committee members during the year 2019-2020:
| Chair: | Sylvia Oates |
|---|---|
| Treasurer: | Kieran Lalli |
| Secretary: | Ruth Noutch |
| Committee | members: Rebecca Jackson |
| Emma Robinson |
Preschool Supervisor
& Committee member: Gemma Beck
We operate under the standard constitution of the Early Years Alliance, with committee members elected annually through a system of proposals and seconding at the Annual General Meeting by members of the previous committee.
Achievements during the year
We count ourselves as very fortunate to have weathered the storm of the coronavirus pandemic during this year and would like to thank everyone involved with our preschool – staff, committee members, volunteers, parents, carers and other members of the local community; for their support and understanding during the year.
The Autumn term in 2019 saw us open as usual of course, culminating in a Christmas party and disco for all of our children which was very well attended and enjoyed by all. Expansions to the building we run from also meant we could run a daily café in a new lobby area for parents and carers to enjoy a free drink and a cake on dropping off their children – a lovely opportunity for people to get together and have a chat. We also held our first formal parent and carers evening in October, welcoming the vast majority of our families to speak to their key workers about their child’s progress and for the children to enjoy crafts and games.
The Spring term saw restrictions and risk assessments gradually being put into place due to the pandemic, culminating to us closing to all but the children of key workers in March 2020. We remained open in this manner for just two weeks however as the small number of these families decided they no longer needed our support.
Our entire staff team then worked from home for April, liaising with parents and carers to offer advice on learning, suggestions for activities, links to online learning; and even posting out sunflower seeds for the children to plant. Our online communication system ‘Famly’ was invaluable in being able to send messages on a regular basis and our keyworkers also phoned and emailed parents and carers to chat about how their child and their family were managing during lockdown. Staff also took the opportunity to update records, plan and develop new activities and undertake online training and development courses which have benefited us greatly since our return.
From the start of May until the end of June we had no option to scale this provision down as our income would not support the payment of the whole team for the extended period. This meant all but the four members of the management team were placed on furlough. The management team continued to liaise with parents and carers, and of course kept the preschool operational during this short time.
The final week of June saw us reopen to a limited number of children from keyworker families for four weeks until the start of the summer holidays. One practitioner returned from furlough to support the management team in this return and we were delighted to return to welcome the children back, we just wished it could have been for more of our families.
We ran in ‘bubbles’ in each room to prevent infection and of course implemented a strict regime of cleaning and hygiene in line with our risk assessment. Many of the parents and carers commented how lovely it was to return, even under such difficult and limited circumstances, and we are grateful to them, and those families who were unable to attend, for their support and understanding during these times.
Moving forward, thankfully, we have been fully operational and open to all of our children since September 2020 and have not had to close for any reason.
Accounts for the year from September 1st 2019 to August 31st 2020
Please see these attached as a separate document. These have been independently examined by the Preschool Accountant, Mr. Ian Pretty, and approved at the Annual General Meeting held online in May 2021.
Given the year we have faced, we were pleased to report only a small deficit for the year of just under £225. We were fortunate that Early Years funding remained in place during lockdown for all eligible children and this meant we could continue to pay a number of staff to work at home during the period to facilitate learning and develop new plans for the preschool, as mentioned above. Sadly, closure did mean the loss of all of our privately paid fees for the period, to counter this we took advantage of the furlough scheme for some practitioners for three months in May, June and July to preserve our finances. Our principal income is from funding and fees in direct payment of childcare, with a smaller element made up from donations from parents and carers for activities such as a gardening project, and fundraising.
Spend and spending categories remained broadly similar to that of previous years. We were very fortunate that our landlords did not charge any rent during the period we were closed, and offered a reduction for the short time we returned at the end of the year. We are very grateful to the Kingswood Methodist Church for this consideration.
We did take the opportunity this year to invest in new information technology in the form of new laptops for the staff to easier access the ‘Famly’ online communication and management system we started to use in 2018. These also proved of great benefit in supporting staff in working from home during lockdown.
We retain the savings and reserves from previous years of over £73,000 which also left us in a strong position to manage the effects of the pandemic. Our reserve policy states we should retain three months of running costs and the statutory redundancy payments in case of closure, which equates to just under £45,000 at costs calculated in 2020.
For the remaining money in our savings, much of which was raised by a very successful year in 2018/2019, we had planned a number of new initiatives including developing our outdoor area and improving our office space. Sadly, the pandemic and limited access to the building even after lockdown ended meant these had to be delayed. We hope to look at these again in 2020-2021, including completely resurfacing our outdoor area and buying a range of new play equipment and resources for outside in particular.
Thank you for reading this report and your interest in our preschool. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us via email at wollatonparkpreschool@gmail.com or telephone 0115 837 6420 during Nottingham City term times.
| s | 2019 ! |
|
|---|---|---|
| RECE,IPTS | ||
| NCCFunding | 84738.54 | 88595.03 |
| PrivateFeesincluding TaxFreeChildcare | 29039.00 | 41765.0s |
| Coronavirus Job RetentionScheme | 5493.58 | |
| Fund Raising | 47s.32 | 44s.29 |
| Donationsthroughfees | 687.s0 | 655.50 |
| SENI}/DAF | 775.34 | 4279.84 |
| MilkRebate | 120.90 | |
| BankandBuildingSocietyfnterest | 27.38 | 22.64 |
| 9u36.ffi | 11588425 |
| PAYPTENTS | ||
|---|---|---|
| WagesandNational Insurance | 94756.63 | 84009.18 |
| Employers PensionContributions | 2029.23 | I700.03 |
| Rent | 10915.64 | rsl85.s9 |
| Insurance | 926.07 | 917.08 |
| Telephone&fnternet | 412.84 | 452.4A |
| Repairs andMaintenance | 144.00 | |
| Accountancyand ProfessionalFees | 134s.00 | 890.00 |
| MilkandSnacks | 3s1.10 | 462.33 |
| FixturesandFittings | 120s.26 | 633.89 |
| ITEquipment and Software | 1566.09 | |
| Consumables | 4409. | t |
| Marketing&Publicity( inc. website) TrainingCourses |
372.83 406.10 |
363.52 8s5.30 |
| DBS Checks | 126.39 | 208.91 |
| MembershipFees | 370.00 | 367.00 |
| EducationalResources | twt.72 | 832.O2 |
| SENI}IDAF | 4279.84 | |
| Famly | 993.60 | 496.80 |
| 12f,4fi.-L | 1I552X2L | |
| SURPLUSOF RECEIPTS | ||
| O}'ERPAYMENTS | ( 224.9sr | 20355.04 |
| OfstedRegistration | 220.00 |
|---|---|
| PLAMembership | 11s.00 |
| InformationCommissionersOflice | 3s.00 |
| Total | 370.00 |
| NDRAISING | |
|---|---|
| ChristmasParty | 683.00 |
| EasyFundraising | 64.10 |
| Photographs | 33.56 |
| CakeSale | 34.60 |
| 8rs.26 | |
| Less Expenses onChristmasParty | 339.94 |
| Total | 475.32 |
| s | 2019 ! |
|
|---|---|---|
| RECE,IPTS | ||
| NCCFunding | 84738.54 | 88595.03 |
| PrivateFeesincluding TaxFreeChildcare | 29039.00 | 41765.0s |
| Coronavirus Job RetentionScheme | 5493.58 | |
| Fund Raising | 47s.32 | 44s.29 |
| Donationsthroughfees | 687.s0 | 655.50 |
| SENI}/DAF | 775.34 | 4279.84 |
| MilkRebate | 120.90 | |
| BankandBuildingSocietyfnterest | 27.38 | 22.64 |
| 9u36.ffi | 11588425 |
| PAYPTENTS | ||
|---|---|---|
| WagesandNational Insurance | 94756.63 | 84009.18 |
| Employers PensionContributions | 2029.23 | I700.03 |
| Rent | 10915.64 | rsl85.s9 |
| Insurance | 926.07 | 917.08 |
| Telephone&fnternet | 412.84 | 452.4A |
| Repairs andMaintenance | 144.00 | |
| Accountancyand ProfessionalFees | 134s.00 | 890.00 |
| MilkandSnacks | 3s1.10 | 462.33 |
| FixturesandFittings | 120s.26 | 633.89 |
| ITEquipment and Software | 1566.09 | |
| Consumables | 4409. | t |
| Marketing&Publicity( inc. website) TrainingCourses |
372.83 406.10 |
363.52 8s5.30 |
| DBS Checks | 126.39 | 208.91 |
| MembershipFees | 370.00 | 367.00 |
| EducationalResources | twt.72 | 832.O2 |
| SENI}IDAF | 4279.84 | |
| Famly | 993.60 | 496.80 |
| 12f,4fi.-L | 1I552X2L | |
| SURPLUSOF RECEIPTS | ||
| O}'ERPAYMENTS | ( 224.9sr | 20355.04 |
| OfstedRegistration | 220.00 |
|---|---|
| PLAMembership | 11s.00 |
| InformationCommissionersOflice | 3s.00 |
| Total | 370.00 |
| NDRAISING | |
|---|---|
| ChristmasParty | 683.00 |
| EasyFundraising | 64.10 |
| Photographs | 33.56 |
| CakeSale | 34.60 |
| 8rs.26 | |
| Less Expenses onChristmasParty | 339.94 |
| Total | 475.32 |