Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report Year ending - December 31[st] 2022
Welcome
Good evening and welcome.
On behalf of the staff and committee we would like to thank you all for taking the time to attend our Annual General Meeting tonight.
It is our pleasure to present to you the Pre-school Annual Report for 2022 and to inform you it has been another successful year for Fazeley Pre-school.
Admissions
In July, 23 children left us to join Millfield and at the start of the new school year in September we welcomed 21 new children, taking this year’s cohort to 25. The 30-hour funding continues to have an impact on the number of children we can accommodate at our setting with lots more families accessing the extra hours available to them. This continues to have a knock-on effect for 2-year old’s as we now only have limited places to accommodate them. It is less likely that children can attend for 2 years now and more likely that they will only be with us for the year before they go to school. In fact, we were oversubscribed this year which meant we did have to turn some younger children away. Numbers are looking good for September 2023, but it is an ongoing concern that the 30-hour funding will have future financial and admissions implications for us. We do have a strong reputation within the community and a lot of our enquires for places are not only from local residents but are also from outside our area. In fact, a lot of enquires for places come from word-of-mouth recommendations which is extremely flattering.
Staff
We are extremely lucky at our Pre-school to have such dedicated, committed, and experienced staff who go well beyond their remit, working together as a team for the best interests of the children in their care. They work many unpaid hours, making Pre-school a fun and stimulating place for the children to play and learn every day. We are immensely proud of our brilliant, supportive team! We are sure that you will agree that all the staff members work so hard to make sure that your children’s time at Fazeley Pre-school is special.
We also hope that you and your child/children will look back upon their time with us with fond memories of great warmth, care, and support. We really appreciate the huge amount of work that often goes un-noticed by others to make our Pre-school special and we would not have such a good reputation is it was not for such a hardworking team. Altogether we have a team of seven with staff having a wealth of experience between them.
Unfortunately, Teresa Cox, who has given 31 years unwavering dedication to our setting, retired in July. This obviously was a big loss to us, as her wealth of knowledge about Early Years and her support to Paula as Deputy Manager over the years has been exceptional. We all wish her a long and well deserved retirement.
Rachel Smith has taken over as Deputy Manager, alongside her role as SENCO. Rachel, again, has a wealth of experience and was already third in charge so the promotion to Deputy has been effortless as she and Paula have worked together for more years than they care to remember. Congratulations to Rachel on her promotion.
Alongside our other experienced members of staff, Julie and Amie, we welcomed Bekki to our team in September. Again, Bekki has worked in the Early Years sector for a number of years and brings to Preschool all that expertise and knowledge. Amie is leaving us to go Maternity leave in a few weeks’ time, so we wish her well with the rest of her pregnancy.
Laura is working towards her Level 3 EYE qualification and Jemma towards her Level 2 Apprenticeship qualification. We wish them both well as they complete their courses this year.
Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report Year ending - December 31[st] 2022
Staff are professionally qualified or working towards a qualification and have years of years of experience between them.
All staff have Enhanced DBS checks
Training
Unfortunately, the days of subsidised training have gone with budgets from Staffordshire Education Authority cut drastically over the past few years. Because of this we must budget to pay for training ourselves and must be creative in the way in which we access different types of training. Staff have completed numerous on-line training modules, webinar training and when staff do get the chance to attend face to face training, they cascade this training to their colleagues. As a legal requirement, staff have all had to update core training regularly which includes Paediatric First
Aid training, which we all completed this year, Food Safety training and Safeguarding training, all of which has to be paid for. All this core training must be updated every 3 years.
As mentioned Laura is now coming towards the end of her CACHE level 3 Early Educator course which when completed will give her a Level 3 qualification and Jemma is working hard to gain her Level 2 qualification, both of which will be completed this year.
Rachel as our SENDCO attends SEND update sessions and cluster group training every term and cascades information from these training events and updates to the staff team.
All staff have regular supervision meetings and appraisals and are actively encouraged to develop their skills and knowledge through mentoring and on-going training.
Fundraising
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our fundraising at Pre-school during the past 12 months. Whether that contribution has been time, money, expertise or as a support to our fundraising events, it is most welcome. Without donations or fundraising, Fazeley Pre-school would not be able to operate. As a charity run group, we rely on fundraising to buy all those extras we would not be able to afford. Our biggest fundraiser, our sponsored FUNFIT challenge took place in May and other fundraising events included an Easter Egg Raffle, Smartie challenges and our Christmas Hamper Draw.
We are into the fourth year of asking parents to support us with the voluntary additional fee charge for all the extras that our funding from SCC does not cover such as snack, craft & art resources, sundries, gardening and cooking activities, dance lessons etc. We are so grateful that parents have understood why we had to introduce this and for their on-going support in paying this charge which this year was set at 50p per hour. This is helping to keep our group financially viable. This year again we have needed to spend an awful lot of money on cleaning and santising products, so we are always grateful when generous parents donate supplies when needed too.
Our Pre-school is also signed up to The Giving Machine and parents can help us by using this to create commission for our Pre-school. Lumiere photography come twice a year to take photographs of the children and we get commission from the sales of these.
We had a donation from Midweek Break of £100.00.
All money raised is used to replace or buy new equipment, goes towards parties for the children and the ongoing maintenance of our outdoor area.
Again, thank you to everyone who has helped out with our fundraising efforts
Links with Parents
We have always prided ourselves with the relationships we form with parents, so it has been wonderful to welcome parents back into our setting after two years plus of restrictions because of COVID
Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report Year ending - December 31[st] 2022
Our Mother’s Day celebration this year was held outside and we were able to invite parents in to attend our Easter Bonnet Parade this year.
We had a joint Sports Day and Graduation celebration event in July which was very well attended by our families and enjoyed by all.
As our new cohort started in September, we were again able to think about inviting parents in more regularly and since then have had a Storytime Café event, held our Christmas Songs around the Christmas Tree, followed by mince pies and hot chocolate on the patio and have had parent consultation meetings in November. We hope to hold other such events in the coming months
Parents are kept informed of news and given regular information via Newsletters, email and Facebook as platforms for communication.
As mentioned, our Facebook page and email keep everyone informed about all aspects of Pre-school life, forthcoming events, and news. We also post photos of the children on our settings photo blog, giving a snapshot of what the children are doing at Pre-school.
Laura set up an Instagram account last year and this has proved very popular, again, giving a snapshot of what the children are doing on a daily basis.
We would just like to say that communication with our parents is essential. You are important to us - we are all part of a big team working together and supporting each other to make sure that the children reach their full potential, so thank you for the part that you play in that too.
Outdoor Play/ Garden
Our outdoor area is used on a daily basis and is what makes our Pre-school special, we spend as much time as we can outdoors and it has been, in our opinion, during COVID, one of the main reasons why we had so few infections. It is very safe being outside!
The children love being outdoors, and our garden provides them with lots of activities to keep them active and busy whilst enjoying the elements and fresh air and of course during the past few years, helping to keep us all safe. They can choose to play with planned activities on the patio area, in the sand pit or mud kitchen as well as experiencing activities such as planting, looking for birds and bugs or challenging themselves with physical activities such as scaling our climbing wall or doing somersaults on our gym bar. We cannot emphasise enough the value of outdoor play and we are so lucky to have such a wonderful facility for the children to use. The garden is a big area to maintain so we must say thank you to everyone who helps maintain the garden. Phil continues to do the general maintenance so thank you Phil.
It also takes a lot of money to maintain our outdoor area. Sand to fill the sand pit and just topping up the bark this year cost £500.00. This coming year we will need to again replace sand, bark, and gravel, renew decking and repair fence posts
Special Events
As mentioned above we held a Mother’s Day and Easter Bonnet celebration in the Spring
We had a Jubilee Party in June to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee which was great fun
We held a lovely joint Graduation Ceremony & Sports Day event for our children in July to celebrate their time with us. It is always a poignant and emotional event, made even more emotional as we said goodbye to Teresa after 31 years of service to our Pre-school.
Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report Year ending - December 31[st] 2022
On the last day of the school year in July, we had our end of year Pirate Party which is always a great fun event which of course all the children enjoyed.
For our new cohort in September we have had a Stay & Play session for Storytime Café, held our Songs around the Tree event and had a Christmas Party at the end of the Autumn term which was great success with lots of dancing and party games.
Transitions & Links with Schools
Most of our children move on to Millfield school and we continue to have strong links with them. We hope that this partnership continues to ensure the smooth transition of our pupils. We want all our children to have a smooth transition to school and we work hard to make sure that this happens, so we invite teachers from all prospective schools to visit us here at Pre-school to make sure that relevant information is passed on and that they have the chance to meet the children.
Revised EYFS
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework was revised in September 2021 so we have been working with it now for over 12 months
Lots of things within the framework did stay the same but there were some significant changes such as staff spending less time on large amounts of written observations and assessments for evidence collection. This has meant we can spend more time supporting and engaging with the children and helping them directly with their learning and developmental needs. This was music to our ears and what we have been striving to do for a long time.
Staff are spending more quality time with children, teaching, scaffolding, and supporting their learning instead of writing up endless observations and reports.
Children are no longer assessed against statements from an age band category. Instead, staff can use their experience and knowledge of child development to monitor if a child’s learning and development is on track for their age.
There is an emphasis on improving children’s language and vocabulary through increasing opportunities for conversations, reading of a wide range of books and holding discussions around activities in other areas of learning and we have been working hard to achieve this.
Safeguarding and welfare of children are obviously still a priority, with the added mention of teaching children about the importance of good oral health and how to keep teeth clean and healthy, again, we have introduced this to the children with fun-based activities.
We were given the autonomy to plan a curriculum that reflects the needs and interests of our children and our Pre-school so although you won’t see lots of paper evidence about what your child is doing at Preschool rest assured your child is being given lots of opportunities to learn across all seven areas of learning and is being taught by experienced practitioners in a rich and enabling environment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, although we are worried, like many other settings about our financial status, and in particular this year with increased heating bills and wage rises we have still managed to have a very successful year. Thanks to your support and our wonderful staff we know that our setting despite all these worries will move forward and go on providing a wonderful setting for local children to attend.
We would like to thank you once again for attending tonight and to thank the outgoing committee for their support over the past year. We do have to elect a new committee tonight; our Pre-school is vital to the community, and we want it to continue to be successful. We would ask you to think about joining our committee, without one, Pre-school cannot operate.
Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report Year ending - December 31[st] 2022
Lastly and most importantly we would like to thank the children for making our place of work so rewarding, enjoyable, challenging, and different every day and to thank you as parents for choosing our Pre-school for your child. We hope to continue and grow and to provide the children with what we feel, is a fantastic start to their education.
Paula Thompson Maria Harborow
Pre-school Manager Chairperson
- FAZELEY PRE SCHOOL STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS
31ST DECEMBER 2022
FAZELEY PRE-SCHOOL FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31STDECEMBER 2022 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNTS
| Receipts: | 2021 | 2022 | 2022 | Payments: 2021 |
Payments: 2021 |
Payments: 2021 |
2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fees Received | 12,891.00 | 11,387.00 | Wages | ||||
| 73,206.62 74,291.32 |
|||||||
| Stafordshire C.C. | 80,722.36 | 88,656.28 | Inland Revenue | 2,949.47 | |||
| 3,074.62 | |||||||
| HMRC | 1,901.90 | Insurance | 1,087.19 | ||||
| 1,111.50 | |||||||
| Donations | 1,505.00 | 100.00 | Ofsted/Accreditation | 50.00 | |||
| 50.00 | |||||||
| Sale of Photos/DVD’s | 75.00 | Fees/Subscriptions | |||||
| 543.03 494.43 | Funft | 773.50 440.00 | Rent | ||||
| 8,240.00 | 8240.00 | ||||||
| Fund Raising | 937.06 | 955.38 | Stationary/Printing | ||||
| 1,477.50 1,641.43 | |||||||
| Sweatshirts | 60.00 | 120.00 | Refreshments | 421.44 | |||
| 678.91 | |||||||
| Commission | 143.00 | Gardening | 764.95 | ||||
| 1,603.67 | |||||||
| Apprentice Incentive | 1,500.00 | Telephone/Postage | 337.11 | ||||
| 270.22 | |||||||
| Resources/Equip. 5,044.94 | |||||||
| 4,974.79 | |||||||
| Celebrations | 874.79 | ||||||
| 1,273.85 | |||||||
| Sweatshirts etc. | 363.54 | ||||||
| 273.80 | |||||||
| Heat/Light | 3,636.82 | ||||||
| 1,788.30 | |||||||
| Trainings | 294.76 | ||||||
| 868.16 | |||||||
| Sundry Expenses | 964.22 | ||||||
| 652.33 |
TOTAL £99,008.82 £103,158.66 TOTAL £100,256.38 £101,287.33
Represented By:
2021
2022
Excess of Receipts over Payments Balances as at beginning of the year
Balance as at end of year
(1,247.56) 1,871.33 40,574.46 39,326.90 £39,326.90 £41,198.23
STATEMENT OF ASSETS AT 31st DECEMBER 2022
2021 2022 Bank Current Account 38,787.89 41,025.39 Cash in hand 539.01 172.84 TOTAL ASSETS £39,326.90 £41,198.23
INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE COMMITTEE OF FAZELEY PRE -SCHOOL
I report on the accounts of the Fazeley Pre-School for the year ended 31[st] December 2022 which is set out on the attached page.
Respective responsibilities of committee and the examiner.
As the charity's committee you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts; you consider that the audit requirement of section 43(2) of the Charities Act 1993 (the Act) does not apply. It is my responsibility to state, on the basis of procedures specified in the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners under Section 43 (7) (b) of the Act, whether particular matters have come to my attention.
Basis of Independent Examiner's Statement.
My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity
Commissioners. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently I do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the accounts.
Independent examiners qualifed statement.
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:-
- (1) Which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements
to keep accounting records in accordance with section 41 of the Act;
and to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and to comply with the accounting requirements of the Act have not been met; or
- (2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
CAGraham
Carol Graham Lyonesse House Lower Strand St Mary’s Isles of Scilly TR21 0PS 12[th] January 2023
INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE COMMITTEE OF FAZELEY PRE -SCHOOL
I report on the accounts of the Fazeley Pre-School for the year ended 31[st] December 2022 which is set out on the attached page.
Respective responsibilities of committee and the examiner.
As the charity's committee you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts; you consider that the audit requirement of section 43(2) of the Charities Act 1993 (the Act) does not apply. It is my responsibility to state, on the basis of procedures specified in the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners under Section 43 (7) (b) of the Act, whether particular matters have come to my attention.
Basis of Independent Examiner's Statement.
My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity
Commissioners. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently I do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the accounts.
Independent examiners qualifed statement.
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:-
-
(1) Which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements
-
to keep accounting records in accordance with section 41 of the Act; and to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and to comply with the accounting requirements of the Act have not been met; or
-
(2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
CAGraham
Carol Graham Lyonesse House Lower Strand St Mary’s Isles of Scilly TR21 0PS 12[th] January 2023