Trustee Report
Aims and Purpose
North Muskham playgroup aims to provide affordable childcare to serve the local community. Opening Tuesday to Friday. School term time, withing the hours of 8am to 4pm. Taking place at the local village hall, renting a room and kitchen facilities. This attaches to their own gated outdoor play area, with secure access to North Muskham Community playing field and park.
The children attending playgroup age 2-4, are a mixture of fee-paying children and those receiving government funding.
At the start of September 2021 we had 31 children attending the setting, 13 funded children and 18 fee paying children.
Structure, governance and management
Playgroup is regulated by Ofsted and currently rated as GOOD. Playgroup is managed daily at ground level by the playgroup manager Helen Walters, who holds level 3 childcare NVQ and SENCO qualifications. Deputy manager Alicia Hewerdine, is level 3 trained. One other staff member is NVQ level 2 childcare trained. Then we have 1 member of staff who is unqualified and undertaking her level 2 childcare NVQ, funded via playgroup. We occasionally have bank staff who are untrained, with full DBS checks. Staffing ratios and minimum qualifications are always in line with the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation stage guidelines. Staff have regular access to training which is encouraged and supported.
The playgroup is governed by a committee. The committee is made up with prospective, retrospective or current parents with children who will or have accessed the childcare setting. The committee consists of parents with a passion to continue the local provisions of quality and affordable childcare in their community. The committee currently has 8 trustees, who all require DBS checks via Ofsted. We meet every school term and hold an annual AGM, to address general running of the playgroup. We comply with the charity commission guidance in how we run our committee and make decisions. Meetings are held as required for any other issues.
Achievements and performance
We have had another busy year 2020-21 with a high volume of children attending the setting. This has meant we have needed to offer extra hours to existing members of staff and recruited extra supply staff to work regular hours to support the child ratios. This has been reflected in the wage differences to last financial year. 2020 wage total was £52,588 compared to this year £70,222. Several other further reasons for this increase are due to; wage increments to all the staff, one of the staff wages going from apprenticeship rate to minimum wage. There has been a minimum wage increase, extra hours have been taken
due to cleaning and paperwork mostly COVID related. We also had very little overtime in year 2020 and required very minimal supply staff hours. We required an additional member of staff over spring/summer period. We have also increased some staff hours.
We started the year with £23,557.91, in the current account. This was due to being paid Autumn 2020 term child funding, at the end of the previous financial year in August 2020. This reflects on our profits and losses. We appear to have made a loss of £4436.00, however this is due to the early income payment not being accounted in our financial year.
Our true income from fees and funding alone was £102.754.06 for this financial year, compared to last year true figure of £78,611.44. This increase in revenue from reflects viably our staff increase and wages.
We had a healthy balance at the end of the year and decided to put £5000 into the savings account. After replenishing some new toys and equipment. We also used the surplus money we had to invest into our Forest School. We have had a Forest School running by a self-employed fully trained forest schoolteacher for the last few years. She has had to leave this role. We value the education and experience it provides to the children. It has been a big success with the children and parents alike, being a highlight of many children’s week. We wanted to continue to offer Forest school. Therefore, have agreed to help with the costs of training new Forest School teachers, who will commit themselves to providing primarily Playgroup with their lessons on a contract basis. So far, we have donated £1000. With a further small donation to setting up costs.
We have benefited from a government initiative last year to give us a grant of £1500 with one of our new employees hired as an apprentice working through their level 2 childcare. We have so far received £750 and are due to receive the second instalment beginning of 2022.
Rent has been the usual amount but increased by nearly £1400 as we had several months free of charge during COVID lockdown 2020.
Our accountant summary sheet appears to have different amounts in some categories larger than last year, for example fundraising expenses. £1580 compared to last year’s £265. This is due to the accountant allocating some monies into assumed categories. Next financial year we will formulate a new spreadsheet for our bookkeeping to provide more subcategories. To be selfexplanatory to accountant on all costs incurred. This will enable the accountant to easily allocate amounts into suitable and accurate categories. Ensuring we can have a better year to year analysis of costing.
Reserves Policy
Playgroup needs to run with some reserves, year to year child numbers can vary and reserves ensure our ability to provide a service with variable income. We do however expect for the year 2021-22 that child places will remain stable, currently in September 16 children funded and 14 fee paying children enrolled mirroring last years amounts.
The savings account has a balance of £35,495 at the end of the financial year 2021. This has been some re-assurance for us going forward into the next financial year. A new nursery has opened within the village offering longer childcare hours and out of term time care. At present this hasn’t affected our numbers, however, we need to take reasonable care to ensure we are able to financially adapt if this does effect Playgroup in the foreseeable future. We also need to acknowledge the increase in staff wages and the bigger demand this creates from the day-to-day income.
The adjacent primary school. North Muskham Primary, often offers F1 spaces. This has been confirmed for 2022. It often impacts our funded numbers during the afternoons, and as a result income.
We have re-assurance with our savings we can continue to offer staff hours if our numbers do fluctuate. Necessary for the stability of Playgroup.
111J50 &5787 Furth*4YJ B#rtk InrArÉst 518 2727 Toys aj 314 274 110 627 910 79514
Chty iOY670 'iJ 14073 37 144361
CHARiftr Milll8ER 1Q36670 31 AUGUST 2021 Chanty S1 145 j5Xbl K J Eakn & Lh NG219PR