2023-08-31-accounts

Annual General Meeting Agenda Academic Year 2022-2023

21 November 2023 8pm via zoom

8.00	Introduction & Apologies	Present: Charlotte Tester, Carlie Francois, Agnes Rogers, Georgie Bushell, Helen Buck, Lauryn Page, Kate Coffey, Claire Shuttleworth, Joanne Funnell, Shannon Brailey, Jenny Eichner, Cressy & Matt Imber, Lisa Hobby, Emma Knight. Apologies: Sadie Noble, Vicci Blackledge
8.02	Declaration of an interest	None
8.05	Approval of last minutes	Georgie Bushell Proposed, Agnes Rogers Seconded truereflectionofthe previousAGM
8.10	Chairs Report	Charlotte read report as not circulated prior to the meeting. Georgie agrees Lauryn manages the setting efficiently and Claire has a good hand at Managing the forecasting, admissions and the finance. Staff all happy and enjoy working at the Pre- school (Charlotte approached them all to ask prior to the meeting).
8.15	Manager’s Report	Lauryn’s report previously circulated. No questions were raised.
8.17	Treasurers Report	Georgie’s report with input from Claire previously circulated and no questions raised. Discussed slight deficit last year due to staff costs covering maternity and 1;1 support. There is also additional financial implications to hirer additional staff that are not cover by WSCC funding such as pensions andNI.

8.20	Election of new committee members and Resignation of existing trustees. Adoption of the constitution	All existing committee agreed to remain on. Cressy, Emma and Sadie had said they would become committee members and Jenny possibly to help as and when she can. Discussed briefly what being on the committee requires of them and how they can support.
8.26	Forecast/Admissions Update	Claire brief summarise from the previous academic year.
8.27	Any Other Business	Vicci Blackledge had noted in her confirmation of absence email that the reports made for interesting reading. Thank you to Lisa Hobby for inviting Pre-school to the Panto (donation from pre-school to be forwarded to the school). Brief fundraising catch up. – Christmas Raffle. Committee to action raffle prizes for a potential easter raffle.
8.35	Nextmeeting date	Tuesday 6thFebruary2024
8.40	Close

Chair’s Report - AGM November 2023

At the start of the academic year all permanent staff were retained, Holly begun her maternity leave and we employed Georgia and Fern on a temporary basis for this academic year (however they both moved on to new employments from Easter) and Leah begun an apprenticeship with us. Future admissions looked good in fact the best projected numbers we have ever had, and finances were well managed. The committee officers Carlie (Secretary) and I (Chair) took over these positions in September 2022 and Georgie (Treasurer) remained in her position. The committee and staff regularly meet each term (via Zoom) to help run and fundraise for our lovely Preschool. We are always on the lookout for committee members, so if you are interested in joining, please get in touch. As a non-profitmaking charity we try to keep our fees low to be accessible to all in the community however this means we rely on fundraising to ensure we remain sustainable. This academic year we were invited to have our first stall at the Bonfire Night. It was a huge success, and we plan to continue to have a stall with them in future years. We also had a stall at the Village Xmas market that was the first since Covid. Whilst it wasn’t the busiest, we still managed to make a small profit. As a committee, we are confident in the abilities of Lauryn (Manger) and Claire (Business Officer) and the pre-school continues to run to a high standard, offering the children a variety of experiences such as Mini notes, reptile visits and visits to the local community. The staff continue to enhance their expertise through regular training courses and networking, and this shows in their dedication to the setting and care they provide to the children. I continue to have regular catch ups with Lauryn and Claire regarding the ongoings in the setting, finances and supporting the staff and feel the Pre-school is managed well and the staff are happy. Thank you to… - Carlie, Georgie, Hels, Agnes, Mrs Hobby’s continued

support and joining our meetings regularly. - Staff continually working above and beyond to give our children the best early childhood experiences and care. - Nisa for continuing to nominate us to receive donations from Making a Difference Locally fund. Thank you to you all for your continued support to our wonderful Pre-School.

Charlotte Tester Chairperson of Ashurst Wood Community Preschool

– Managers Report September 2022 August 2023

In September 2022 we started back with 36 children attending and those numbers increased gradually throughout the year. We retained all staff members, with Holly going on Maternity Leave, Leah starting an apprenticeship with us and the temporary employment of Fern and Georgia. Caroline returned but shortly after was off due to an operation. Caroline’s operation went smoothly, and she returned to work after 2 weeks.

Training

Leah continued to work hard to complete her Level 2 childcare qualification utilising her 20% home learning day to complete coursework various online training courses support her learning. All staff continued to undertake on-line courses for their continuous professional development including Safeguarding, Behaviour Management, Prevent Duty and FGM. Shannon has attended a Developmental Language Disorder course, All things visuals strategies and updated her Designated Safeguarding Lead.

Lauryn attended termly Leaders Networks, a Supporting Refugees in Early Years course and completed A look at writing readiness and pencil grip training.

Kate completed an Autism for Girls training and attended termly Senco/Inco networks. Holly Updated her Paediatric First Aid and attended a Pathological demand avoidance course. Caroline attended a Selective Mutism webinar alongside the parent of the children who needed support.

All training events attended are cascaded to all staff to ensure we get maximum impact out of any courses.

Curriculum

Our planning continues to be based on stories, occupations/professions and countries around the world. This gives us opportunities to introduce a variety of food to snack times, music from different countries to the sessions and look into cultural beliefs. Alongside this, we consider and incorporate individual planning based on each child’s interests and development stage and their Key Person activities to extend their learning.

We celebrated festivals and awareness events throughout the year. For Halloween we held an after hours party for our children, we entered the village scarecrow festival and won!!, We acknowledged Remembrance Day and walked up to the memorial tower on Hammerwood Road, celebrated Diwali, Christmas, the Lunar New Year, Storytelling week, Road Safety Week, Valentine’s Day. We invited parents to watch the children sing their Christmas songs and invited grandparents in for the children to sing too on Grandparents Day. We also celebrated the Kings Coronation in May and provided each child with a gift bag with an item of memorabilia and some party treats.

Resources and Premises

We upgraded many resources, particular the garden equipment and utilised funding to continue to offer Music sessions for the academic year. Funding was also used towards a reptile visit. We deemed our outside Astroturf as unsuitable so sourced quotes and had the work completed over the Easter Break, surprising the children upon their return. The astro

turf has been a HUGE hit and the cart track being used for many types of races. We also utilised funding to pay for our usual treat for the children with a visit from a Reptile company. We spend some time researching into children’s writing and readiness and purchased some resources that complement the National Handwriting Institution guidance, and these resources are being used regularly.

We had a few children with complex needs that required 1;1 intervention and support, hence the hiring of additional staff. The team worked especially hard to keep the setting running to the high standard we pride ourselves on and ensured all children in our care were receiving the opportunities and learning they deserved. One of our children with SEN was offered a placement at a special school and left us in April whilst the others remained until July and were supported with transitions into their new primary schools.

Fundraising and Contributions

The staff all worked together to get a selection of goodies made for the bonfire stall from donations from our Pre-school parents which was our biggest fundraiser since before Covid. Committee ran the stall at the Christmas market too which gave us another little boost of money.

We introduced our consumable donations lists at the beginning of the year and has been a huge success. Parents donated as and when they could/wanted and we have had a continuous stock of dry snack, messy play resources and ingredients for making playdough and experiments. This saved the Pre-school a considerable amount of money meaning our funds could be used for resources or experiences that the children directly benefited from. We will continue to put lists outside of Pre-school for parents to donate.

Transition

All the staff worked extremely hard to complete thorough assessments, reports and transitions for all of the Owls who moved onto school. We liaised with Ashurst Wood Primary for the Majority of the transitioning children and also with Estcots and Blackwell Primary for the remaining few.

Thank You’s

I would like to thank the staff for their endless commitment to our high standards, providing a home from home environment for our children and families, The committee for attending regular meeting and sharing ideas for sustainability, all parents for their continuing support through donations, gifts, sweet treats and lovely feedback and Mrs Hobby and the Primary School for supporting us and including us in relevant updates, policy changes and streamlining procedures to ensure we are working collaboratively.

Lauryn Page Manager

Treasurers Report Academic year 2022-2023

At the end of July 2021 we had a deficit of £7,090.65, this was to be expected as that year things were still a little uncertain after Covid. By July 2022 most of this deficit was recouped and life was back to more of a normal.

This academic year we started off with a large number of sessions filled and 36 children on the roll across 2 of our 3 age groups. This year we had a child remaining with us that we knew would require 1-1 support whilst awaiting a place in specialist provision so during the summer we recruited a member of staff to help with this. Whilst County had said they would cover the cost of this staff member aside of the monies received through inclusion funding there were still cost implications that we as a preschool were covering for example the staff member being enrolled onto the nest pension scheme, national insurance. Once this child had left us at the end of the Spring term the staff member remained with us for a few extra weeks as their contract had been extended, however they found another position due to the Preschool being unable to maintain her position after the end of her contract.

We also made the decision to retain another staff member as one full time staff member was awaiting an operation, the scale of which could have seen them signed off for a number of months and another was going on maternity leave. So that we knew we could maintain our high staff to children ratios and knowing that we had a large number on the roll and a number of children needing 1-1 support we could maintain this. A large part of the actual wage was covered through inclusion for one child however part was not.

During the Autumn term we had a new door entry system installed, the original keypad access was not fully functioning and was not safe as it would stop working which meant we could not access the building. A fob entry was installed which was £1,043.91, £102.71 for an electrician to add a spur to support the power unit and £130 for an additional set of fobs.

Whilst still pending operation details for our staff member we paid out £420.00 on an occupational therapist report for this staff member to ensure they were being supported which was an unexpected/not forecast for expense. This term we had the annual boiler service £176.40 and this time a couple of parts were required and replaced at a cost of £210.00 again not forecast for. The large number of children on the roll and older equipment meant that a new unit and draws for the children to each have their own trays was required and purchased.

We made £316 through fundraising after expenses, the main event being the sweet treats at the Bonfire night, which was certainly a fantastic event and popular. Our Christmas cards made £32.00 the provider this time did not provide the quality that we have previously been used to and the coming year through the PTFA a new provider has been sourced. A couple of small fundraisers namely Bag 2 school and a small amount from easyfundraising have also contributed to this £316.00 total. We are yet to get back to the levels previously made before Covid however this is certainly a start, hopefully this coming year we can hold more fundraisers to help with the increasing costs we face.

We were given a donation from the St Christopher’s Trust of £500 which was classed as a hardship fund and we used part of this in the summer term for a child’s logoed school uniform we still have just over £400 to be allocated. We still had the expense of a mini hub through BT that in hindsight was not required as our full fibre was actually sufficient for the Preschool’s needs. Unfortunately we were locked into a 24 month contract and despite several attempts to cancel we were unable to this will be rectified in October 2023 when the contract is due for renewal. This has cost us an extra £236.04. The insurance was £2,125.73 this year for the buildings and contents a slight increase on the previous year this is to be expected.

The total of the inclusion funding and EYPP (Early Years Pupil Premium for eligible children) was £14,814.75 and the expenditure combined of these two was £13,686.98, this slight difference can be accounted for the fact that our Senco lead Kate spent 1-1 time with those children in receipt of inclusion funding and EYPP however this split was not shown in the wages break down. Had this been done we would have spent out the same give or take as we had had in.

In the Spring term we paid for the door lock on the door out to the decking area to be changed to a thumb lock which made us compliant with the fire report that was carried out at a cost of £248.21.

The biggest expense other than wages was the astro turf being completely relaid over the Easter break at a cost of £5,800.00, the previous lot had been down since the building was first built. We have been open for 10 years this December and was

second hand at the time so it had served us well. It is now a bright colourful space that the children absolutely love. Money from this was taken from the main account rather than bringing over from the reserves as there was money available.

We will be looking to change the financial year of the Pre-school so that instead of it running from August through the end of July it will follow an actual academic year from September to the end of August. With this in mind this academic year we look to have a deficit of £17,000. However this can be justified in that apart from being a not for profit making charity we have accounted for 13 months with the change in financial year. If we were to take the extra month off along with the monies that haven’t been moved over from the reserves for the astro, £8,000 and £5,800 it would leave a deficit of £3,200.00.

The financial forecasting for the coming year and having low numbers in the autumn and spring terms has seen us reduce the hours for everyone, except the apprentice, this meant we did not need to make any staff redundant. This has been taken well by the staff and we want to thank them for their cooperation and understanding. We are hopeful that the government changes to childcare funding and making this accessible for working parents of 2 years will see an increase in the demand for places.

Accounts balance Account balance start August 2022 end of August 2023 Main £29,048.41 Main £11,634.94 Reserves £58,024.97 Reserves £52,314.33 Redundancies £7,418.81 Redundancies £13,463.06

In the main account the August figures have a large difference this can be explained by the fact that the children on the role for September 2022 was significantly higher the September 2023 so we would have received a higher 70% of upfront funding due to these higher numbers of children on the roll for this academic year.

Finally thank you to Claire Shuttleworth for maintaining our forecasts and keeping the books running (and for writing most of this report) and thank you to our accountant Robert Agates.

1SV¢? JY¥ p$. Ashurst Wood Community Preschool's feservos pollcy Rfrserve$ are that part of a chaws fuThls that we either freely avaikgble to Sp￿ on any of the charitys purposes c are restrtted fry a SFecific WWkM)se. At Ashursl Wc>d Communrty Presrthool we t43Vo hvo accowtls asK18 from the main bank acrAunt. These are the Continwcy Ireserves} acc(K￿t which is deemed as l￿restr￿ted f￿d5 arKI a Redundan¢i&¥ account vknich is deemed as restitled fuThls. The aim of the contingency acc¢Mt W￿ld to have 8 balance equal to a terms Presc￿1 8xp￿se1 this would vary by academic yew but W￿￿Id be revi￿ed annually. As a smaS1 ¢tsrty our Contingency account would also potentially cover ￿$ts suth a$." An unforesggn emergwcy or cher un8xpeclgd wed fty furwjs. eg an w￿Xpected br90 bill Covering unforeseen day-lcpday opwatThial costs, eg empbying lempxyary staff lo cover a long-lemi sick absence A sourc8 of incxjme, eg a beiTrJ renth¥ed. Furmls may ￿ nO￿led to give thè Irusle88 lime lo laka action rf NfA)m8 falls belcrw ex￿claI￿ Planned commitments that ￿nOt be met by ftrtufe InC￿e alcffle. eg pkgns ts a major asset purchase The naed lo lund $f#yt tom drftits in a cash budgel, •J MLYW may nood 10 b• ynl boforo fundiro grant is r8ceN The aim of tho Redundanoes acccunl is to cTher th8 costs of payng 81aff should th8 Preschool need to clos& or, after rew6wino rt$ noeds, bo ftycad to mako r6dLndancm. Thi8 will be annLtally fèviewed using lh• wvemmont rOdU￿n￿$ ¢altyJlator ￿lir0 aThJ ryutt¥w tho ro18vant irrformati¢ associated to each empknyed aff member. This policy was adopted at a meeling of Ashursl Communty PresdKol Hold on: Dale lo b8 reviewed. zo Signgd on behalf of Ihe trustees of the chwity.. Full name.. Ilo CHAIL Posrtion.. s￿natUre.. Dale..

ASHURST WOOD COMMUNITY PRE-SCHOOL INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES ON THE ACCOUNTS OF ASHURST WOOD COMMUNITY PRE-SCHCXX We rem on the acujunls of the (x)mpany for the pericKI ended 31 August 2023, which are sel out on page 2 Respective responsibilitles of trusteos and examingr The charity's Iiuslees are responsible lor the preparation ol the 8cts￿nts and (xnsider that an audit is not required for this year under secb.on 43121 ol the Charib'es Act1993 and Ihal an independent examination is needed. Having sabsfied ￿rselVeS that the Charity is eligible for independent examinab'on il is our responsibility to.. al examine the ac%￿nts under Secb'on 43 01 the 1993 Act., bl lo follow the woc8dures L8id dow) in the general direclH)n5 givBn by the Charity CommissK)n under Section 43171 of the 1993 Act,. and cl lo stsle whether parbculw mailers have come io rny attenb'on. Basis of Indwendent •xamlnti'8 report Our examination was camed out in ¥cordance wth the general directi¢￿S given by the Chwty Commission. An examinab'on indudes review of the accounb.ng records kept by the charity and 8 comparison ol the accoun15 presented Ihose records.11 also indude$ consider8ts.on ol any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanal'c￿$ from you as trustees LX)norning any such matters. The w0￿￿ureS undertaken do not proTAde all the evrdence that would be required in an wdil and Consequenly no opinion is given as to whether the ac￿Unts [￿sent a hje and fair view and Ihe rep)rt is limited to those matters sel out in our ststemenl telow. Independent examinorfs Statgmont In (onneclion with our examinalh)n. no rnatter has (￿rne lo (xjr 8ttenlK)n'. 11 which gives us reasonable cause to believe that in any material reSp￿t the requirements.. al lo keep accounting records in accordan￿ with Secb'on 41 ol the 1993 Act," and bl lo prepare accounts which w)rd with the account'ng records and comply wth Ihe &¢oynts"ng requirements of Ihe 1993 Act have not been mel, or to whith, in our opinion, attention shoukl be drawn in order to enab￿ a proper understanding ol the M)unts to b8 reached. Robert A Cgrtifigd Accountsnls Dated . 24th May2024............................................. Senlosa Southview Road Crowborough East Sussex TN61HG

ASHURST WOOD COMMUNITY PRE-SCHOOL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2023 INCOME EXPENSES WSCC funding Fees Enduring legacy Grants received Fundraising and donations Bank Interest received 107,687.29 28,658.66 3.500 00 1,500.00 1.387 46 335.79 Staff wages Staff pension contributions Staff health screenings Rent and rates Electricity, gas and water Refuse collection Insurance Snack bar Slalionery and resources EYPP, DAF and Inclusion expenses Childrens, entertainment and gifts Training costs DBS checks Fundraising expenses Website hosting and updates Telephone Repairs and maintenance Installation of astro turf Subscriptions and licences Sundry expenses 118.8S8.47 3,833.00 420.00 1,461.03 1,114.41 180 00 2,125.73 550.42 2,820.33 6,481,95 364.52 363.39 327.40 850.52 67.00 1,078.24 4,844.85 5.800.00 1,063.68 520 22 Net deficit for the year 10.055.96 153,125.16 153,125.16 RECONCILIATION OF CHARI￿ RESERVES OPENING BALANCES CLOSING BALANCES Cash al bank.. Current account (General Fund) Deposit account Icontingency Fund) Redundancy provision account Petty cash in hand Stock in hand - T-shirts WSCC funding received In advance Creditors - PAYE & National Insurance Cash at bank.. Current account (General Fund) Deposit account (Contingency Fund} Redundancy provision account Pety cash in hand Stock in hand - T-shirt$ WSCC funding received in advance 28,866.91 58,023.05 7,418 55 44.82 175.00 {15,591.141 {281.941 11,634.94 52,314.33 13,463.C 275.35 320.00 {9,408.39} 78,655.25 68.599.29 Net deficit for the year 10,055.96 78,655.25 78,655.25