Supervisors Report AGM 2021
We started September 2020 with a healthy amount on children enrolled and some uncertainty with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The team was Myself, Ali, Christine, Michelle, Pete & Sally. Throughout the year staff has completed various online courses, due to the pandemic, training has been hard to obtain but EDU care as part of our Early Years Alliance insurance offer a range of online course. Using EYPP money, Michelle has enrolled onto a music therapy course to support some of our children, and I am part of a pilot scheme called ‘Reach for the Stars’ which is about challenge in the EYFS and developing our practice and environment.
We started in September by welcoming our existing and new children to the new term, we began with the normal topic All About Me, to help us learn more about our children and helping find out what they have been up to over the summer. As well as the topics, ‘Being Healthy’ and ‘Harvest’. The first few weeks involved lots of developing friendships, great imaginative role play, messy play, scissor skills and of course lots of play and exploration. Being Healthy complimented our curriculum, the children made smoothies, explored skeletons and bones and experimented with foods in their play.
Our harvest theme in October facilitated lots of additional activities such as making soup, where the children used their skills to chop and prepare the vegetables, they strengthened their hand muscles by making vegetable people and we hosted our Harvest celebration via zoom for the parents to see the children tell the story of The Gigantic Turnip. We had a collection for the food banks which parents were extremely generous with their donations and one of our families kindly organised taking the items to Petersfield Food bank.
At the beginning of November and after a wonder first half term we welcomed Katherine back to the team after her maternity leave.
In November we used our environment to explore autumn and the natural changes as well as the topics Bonfire, Remembrance, Diwali, Road Safety and of course Christmas. The children honoured the 2 minutes silence on Remembrance Day and were provided with the resources to make poppies, as well as using it as an opportunity to remember all our service men and women both past and present. The children explored Diwali, together we observed mendhi pictures, used playdoh to make Diya lamps, used various materials to make rangoli
patterns, dressed up in traditional clothes and experimented with light. Katherine and Michelle also dressed up and taught the children some traditional dance which the children loved! Road safety the children made cars using giant boxes, made traffic light biscuits, explored shape in our environment, sorted different types of transport and practised crossing the road safely using the bikes in the garden. Halloween was a big factor and the children enjoyed scooping the seeds from pumpkins, grown in our garden and designing faces to carve and making potions from the left-over seeds and flesh. We explored Guy Fawkes by exploring sounds and various language and experimenting with glitter. We also talked about fire safety and the children shared their experiences of watching fireworks albeit limited this year due to the restrictions.
December of course saw the start of all the wonderful activities that Christmas brings. A Christmas themed home area, lots of sensory, snow and iced themed tuff tray activities, sensory den and much more…. As part of our literacy curriculum the children wrote letters to Santa in our Christmas themed mark making station. Once written in small groups they walked to the post box to post them giving us another wonderful opportunity for the children to talk about what they could see and hear. Even with a pandemic, we still wanted to put on our Christmas nativity in true Stepping Stones style so each of the children took on a small role and via zoom, performed the story of Little Robin Red Vest, a story that tell the true meaning of Christmas of giving to those less fortunate. Once again, the children were amazing. Katherine organised a great online Christmas raffle which was a big success under the circumstances and prizes consisted of various themed hampers. This was very well supported by family and friends. We finished for Christmas with our Christmas Party which again, was slightly different with food prepared by Pete and entertainment from the staff. We were under the impression that Father Christmas was self-isolating, so the children received a visit from Katherine’s twin sister who works in the north pole - Katherine Elf! She had a gift for each of the children and the children enjoyed it just as much! As well as all the annual Christmas events, staff planned other various Christmas activities such as number matching crackers, filling trees with pom poms to develop their fine motor skills, creating a Christmassy home corner, setting up a snow scene with the happy land to encourage imaginative play, building their own Christmas sleigh and have a Christmas themed post office to encourage and develop mark making.
We began the New Year with another lockdown. With schools only open to children whose parent are keyworkers or vulnerable children many families made the decision to keep their Stepping Stones children home too, meaning a quieter term. Our topics were Winter, People Who Help Us, Native Birds, Weather, and Chines New Year. For those children at home, we provided them with weekly activities linked to a particular skill and we hoped our families knew we were always at the end of the phone, should they have needed us.
Always a favourite is those unplanned and spontaneous activities and learning. The children arrived at a beautiful white and frosty field, so what better than to go and explore… We
experimented with blowing bubbles onto the frosty ground and observing what happens. The bubbles turned to ice! I was equally excited as the children as I did not know this happened. The children waited patiently to observe how the bubbles changed and froze.
We organised for the children to spend the morning at the millennium field, exploring the outdoor, natural classroom where they played pooh sticks, watched and listened to the birds and other environmental sounds, collected sticks to order them by size, made a (pretend) bonfire, talked about the flowers they observed and could just run around!
The end of January we had snow and with the latest lockdown restrictions this was exactly the fun and excitement that everyone needed as well as another unplanned but great learning opportunity. The children discussed how to make sledges to use on our slight hill in the garden, made prints, practiced their throwing and embraced the white stuff!
We have several children with various heritages which were wonderful and great to learn about other cultures, religion and where they come from. As we have some children with Scottish heritage we celebrated Burns Night, where Scottish dancing was a big hit!
We planned our native bird theme to link with the Big Garden Bird Watch, the children had the opportunity to create bird feeders to develop their fine motor skills, develop their number recognition using eggs in the nest, play bird bingo, and use their imagination in the bird watch, matching eggs, exploring texture, practice their listening skills listening to bird sounds, looking at different prints of birds and not forgetting learning the classic birdie song!!
As part of our weather theme, (Professor) Christine, and some of the children tested which materials stopped Derrick the Dinosaur form getting wet, during a science experiment. They experimented with a leaf, paper, fabric and plastic.
During Chinese New Year Michelle provided the children with a variety of materials and the children explored and learnt about this celebration. They experimented with themed rice, studied Chinese writing, and used their imagination in the Chinese themed home corner. And together created the most beautiful dragon. The children took turns to stand under the blanket and dragon head to create a life size dragon and experimented with their movement and sound to make the dragon come to life, it was truly magical.
As part of people and communities the children learnt about various occupations, interests and skills of others.
During half term, Katherine and I spent the day at Stepping Stones, revamping the environment for the children. We introduced new areas and developed existing ones. We were extremely excited by the changes and when the children returned after their break they were too and immediately began exploring and investigation.
After the break we had planned to explore Nursery Rhymes and Fairy tales, World Book Day, Women who changed the world, Mother’s Day, Nature in Spring, Spring Animals and Easter.
World Book Day this year was very well supported and throughout the week, we decided given the circumstances we would not expect parents to provide their children with costumes but to decorate a toilet roll holder into their favourite character. This as a huge success and the children had a great time talking about them and playing with the characters in various areas.
With St Patrick Day in March, Katherine divulged that she used to be an Irish dancer and bought her dresses in for the children to see. She then demonstrated to the children her hidden talent and the children (and staff) were in awe. Katherine showed the children, and they all had a go, watching Katherine’s movements and copying them precisely. The children enjoyed this so much they asked for it to be repeated for a week and a half.
With the revamped playgroup the children were observed more highly engaged in their play and exploring more of their environment.
Pete and his sons kindly updated our virtual tour to reflect the changes made to the environment.
Easter saw another online performance where we held two Easter Parades. The children had created the most wonderful Easter hats and bonnets which they paraded around our garden and the field for families to see and then told the story of the very hungry caterpillar, followed by some Easter songs. Whilst all this was happening, the Easter bunny must have sneaked into the garden and the children all went on an Easter scavenger hunt, finding Easter pictures in exchange for some Easter treats.
At the beginning of term, we learnt the heart-breaking news that Ali had cancer and would need to take time off from Stepping Stones to receive treatment. Ali is and has been a huge part of the Stepping Stones family to everyone, staff, children and parents for a long time so this obviously had a big impact and everyone both past and present wish her well.
We started the summer term with some wonderful sunshine and the topics Castles and Dragons, Where We Live, Growing, Pirates and Insects and Minibeasts, as well as focusing on Eid and World Bee Day.
With the sunny weather the children have chosen to be outside more, and we observed some wonderful group play where the children independently instigated creating their own seesaw using the giant pipe, great games of hide and seek and using the resources to cerate their own trampoline. The children have spent lots of time in the vegetable garden, helping to prepare it more for planting, watering the plants, picking weeds and taking on responsibility of garden monitors.
Our pirate theme proved popular with the children as Michelle created treasure baskets, our own indoor pirate ship, treasure counting, giant map making and exploring and sharing various books.
Our minibeast theme saw the arrival of 5 tiny caterpillars that the children observed, noticing them growing into ‘great big fat caterpillars’ before climbing to the top of the tubs to become chrysalis, where they will stay for ‘2 weeks, before turning into beautiful butterflies’. The children were able to observe the children turn into butterflies and watched their colours develop before realising them into the wild.
Some of the children have been specifically interested in weddings and we have developed and extended this interest by planning every part of the wedding, as you would a real one! The children have used their mark making skills to create invites and decorations, designed and created costumes, made bouquets and gathered petals for the flower girls or boys, agreed and designated roles, write vowels and plan the party after!
As we reach the final term for some of our families, we have been remarkably busy planning our sports day to comply with the covid guidance and our topics and themes are Oceans, Men who changed the world and Father’s Day, Dinosaurs, Canada, Sports and Music Festivals.
The children have still been busy taking care of the garden and plan to set up their own shop, selling the produce grown in the garden.
All of this is on top of our everyday playing, exploring, laughing, experimenting, memory making learning journey that we share each day with our precious little people.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Committee for the time they have given in an exceedingly difficult year, without a committee, Stepping Stones would not be able to operate.
I would also like to thank our families for their incredible support, understanding and patience during this difficult time. Our families are what make Stepping Stones the incredibly special place that it is, and we are proud of the relationships we make with our families to allow us to have such a warm, naturing and loving playgroup for the children.
Finally, to the fabulous Stepping Stones team. I cannot find the words to thank them enough for their support and hard work both in their collective and individual efforts. They have been determined, flexible and creative in the face of sometimes enormous challenge and have put the needs, welfare and safety of the community before their own. They all go the extra mile to ensure Stepping Stones offers a fantastic naturing place for children to learn and grow and through some difficult times have kept smiling, playing, offering hugs and just being AMAZING!
Kim Griffiths
Chairpersons Report
Summary of activities for the academic year 2020-21
Autumn Term 2020
-September saw a return to playgroup with the Covid pandemic still a concern. We were in a tier system that meant we could not hold any activities that involve lots of parents.
- Christmas celebrations were limited to the playgroup. The children put on a performance that was ‘zoomed’ for parents. We managed to arrange a Christmas raffle with donated prizes. Along with a generous donation from C Hibbard we raised some much-needed funds for the children. (Playgroup staff plan to purchase a shelter for the garden area.)
Spring Term 2021
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The New Year saw us in another national lock down. Playgroup remained open for all children, but some parents chose to keep their children at home. We had reduced numbers but the staff carried on developing engaging and varied activities for the children.
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We feared that there might be a financial impact as we felt we could not charge parents for the sessions that their child was not a playgroup. The County council agreed to continue to fund the children as if they were at playgroup. This took a weight off our minds!
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We did not arrange any Easter activities as lockdown measures had not lifted much.
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The national working wage went up and this had an impact on staff pay. All employees on this level of pay were given a pay rise in line with the government suggestion. The committee also agreed that all other members of staff should have a matching pay rise.
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We found out that a member of staff has cancer and this has had an emotional and logistical impact. The staff organised themselves to cover the staff member’s sick leave. Everyone has been flexible and understanding.
Summer Term 2021
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Some of the lockdown restrictions were lifted and children returned to playgroup.
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- The committee agreed to pay staff extra money for completing work outside of playgroup hours. This has come about as staff no longer have time during the working day to complete paper work for their key children. We have so many children at playgroup, the committee felt it was appropriate to pay staff double time and decided upon an equation based on how many key children they have. This has now been actioned by our book keeper and wages lady.
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Plans for our annual Teddy Bears Picnic, Leaver’s award ceremony and Sports Day were underway but, unfortunately, the lifting of restrictions has been delayed by 4 weeks.
Looking to the future
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We hope to arrange a selection of Covid compliant events for the end of term.
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- We are looking forward to being able to resume our fund-raising events.
With thanks
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Thank you to the staff for doing their best during this challenging time.
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Thank you to the parents and carers for their continued support.
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Thank you to the committee members who are being flexible during this time as we cannot have traditional meetings!
Company No: 08864737
STEPPING STONES PLAYGROUP STATEMENT OF ASSETS & LIABILITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2020
STEPPING STONES PLAYGROUP
STATEMENT OF ASSETS & LIABILITIES
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2020
| Cash Funds Bank Account Deposit Account Cash in Hand Pockit "Cash Card" Account Total Cash Funds Other Assets Fixed Assets Fees Receivable HMRC Other Debtors Total Other Assets Liabilities Trade Creditors Rent Telephone PAYE Wages Accounts Accrual Accruals Fees Repayable Pension creditor Bad Debt provision Corporation Tax Total Liabilities Net Assets Represented by; Reserves B/Fwd - unrestricted Excess / (deficit) for the year |
2020 £ 21,773 33,049 - - 54,822 572 261 - 444 1,277 345 - - 291 4,434 - 1,725 91 - 55 - 6,941 49,158 45,909 3,249 49,158 |
2019 £ 13,432 34,425 - - 47,857 508 585 - 442 1,535 3,355 - - 28 - - 100 - - - - 3,483 45,909 48,351 (2,442) 45,909 |
|---|---|---|
STEPPING STONES PLAYGROUP
MANAGEMENT PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2020
| INCOME Grants from HCC Fees Toddler Group Fundraising Events Donations Photographer Misc Income Milk Refund Bad Debt provision EXPENSES Wages & National Insurance Employer's Pension Contributions Training Staff Welfare Cost of fundraising Events Rent & Hire of rooms Repairs & Maintenance Vegetable garden Refreshments & Consumables Outings & Parties Uniforms Insurance Subscriptions Telephone & Internet Printing, Postage & Stationery Advertising & Promotion Gifts Crafts & toys Accountancy Travel & Entertaining Legal Depreciation Bad Debt provision Sundry Expenses NET Bank Interest received NET of Receipts/(Payments) |
£ 60,555.00 672.00 (504) - 108.00 7,789.00 - 1,392.00 1,274.00 261.00 - 759.00 - 270.00 403.00 - 440.00 1,029.00 968.00 - 100.00 176.00 55.00 - |
£ - 78,332.00 - 629.00 - 19.00 - - - 78,980.00 75,747.00 3,233.00 16.00 3,249.00 |
2019 £ - 64,548.00 - 4,005.00 4,858.00 58.00 - - 322.00 73,791.00 (53,213.00) (421.00) (2,023.00) (162.00) (266.00) (12,649.00) (258.00) - (587.00) (621.00) - (621.00) - (358.00) (570.00) (30.00) (965.00) (2,358.00) (967.00) - (50.00) (132.00) - - (76,251.00) (2,460.00) 18.00 (2,442.00) |
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(HARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusteesl members of STEPPING STONES PLAYGROUP On accounts for the year ended Charity no Ilf any} 31 AUGUST 2020 1035183 Set out on pages 1T02 I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity ("the Trust") for the year ended 3110812020. Responsiblllties and basis of report As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordan with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 {'the Act.). I report in respect of my examination of the Trusl's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under sertion 145151{b) of the Act. Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's ststement come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe Ihat in, any material respect.. the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act., or the accounts did not accord wilh the accounting records., or the aG¢ounts did not comply wilh the applicable requirements concerning the fonn and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 otherthan any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fair, view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be rea¢hed. Signed: Dat8: Name: Maureen Anne Richardson Relevant professional qualification{sl or body IER Oct 2018
(if any): Address: Richardson Pasquet & Co. Ltd Soulhgale Chambers, 37 - 39 Soulhgate Street Vmnchesler S023 9EH Section B Disclosure Only Gomplele if the examiner needs lo highlight material matters of Goncern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts.. directions and guidan for examiners). Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose. IER Oct 2018