2023-12-31-accounts

Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report

Year ending - December 31[st] 2023

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 2023 and to inform you it has been another successful year for Fazeley Pre-school.

Admissions

In July, 21 children left us to join Millfield and at the start of the new school year in September we welcomed 24 new children, taking this year’s cohort to 28. 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 knockon 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 again this year which meant we did have to turn some younger children away. Numbers are looking good for this coming September and with the introduction of the Governments funding for younger children coming into effect in April, we know we are going to have lots of enquires for places.

It is therefore, an ongoing concern that the introduction of more funded places for younger children 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 Preschool 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 work so hard to make sure that your child’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 unnoticed by others to make our Pre-school special and we would not have such a good reputation is it was not for such a hard-working team. We have a small team of six staff who have a wealth of experience between them.

Two staff have completed their Early Years Qualifications this year, so we congratulate both Laura for completing her Level 3 EYE qualification and Jemma for completing her Level 2 Apprenticeship qualification. This means that all our current staff hold relevant Early years qualifications as well has having many 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 18 months ago, 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 and Jemma have completed their courses and are fully qualified.

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.

Paula regularly delivers in-set training on a wide variety of topics to staff.

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 fifth year of asking parents to support us with the voluntary additional fee charge for all the extras that 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

Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report

Year ending - December 31[st] 2023

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 sanitising 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 Preschool. Lumiere photography come twice a year to take photographs of the children and we get commission from the sales of these.

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 and towards all the other day to day expenses listed above.

Again, thank you to everyone who has helped out with our fundraising efforts and for the ongoing support with paying the extra fee charge.

Links with Parents

We have always prided ourselves with the relationships we form with parents, so it has been wonderful to fully welcome parents back into our setting after the disruption of the pandemic.

We held a Mother’s Day celebration and invited parents 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 and enjoyed by all. This past year has also seen us invite parents in to our Story time Café event and at Christmas we held a Christmas Stay & Sing event, followed by mince pies and hot chocolate on the patio. We held parent consultation meetings in November and have lots of other events planned for the coming year.

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.

We also have an Instagram account and this has proved very popular with parents as again it gives 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 is what kept us safe during COVID and what continues to help us keep infections down as well as giving the children a fantastic area to explore and play in.

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,as mentioned above, helping to keep us all safe. They can choose to play with planned activities on the patio area, play 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 costs over £500.00. This coming year we will need to again replace sand, bark, and gravel, renew some decking and repair fence posts.

Special Events

As mentioned above we held Mother’s Day and Easter Bonnet celebrations in the Spring and Dad’s Stay & Play sessions in June to celebrate Father’s Day

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. It was quite a moment for Paula too as staff made a surprise presentation to her to celebrate 30 years of service to Pre-school.

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 Story time Café, held our Christmas Stay & Sing event and held a Christmas Party at the end of term which was great success with lots of dancing and party games.

Year ending - December 31[st] 2023

Fazeley Pre-school Annual Report

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, not just Millfield 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.

Ofsted inspection

Our most recent Ofsted Inspection took place in July and we were very pleased with the outcome of ‘Good’ across all areas of the inspection.

Ofsted is the UK’s official ‘Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills’ and as such are responsible for inspecting and regulating services that provide care and education for children and young people. Unless they are investigating complaints or safeguarding issues, Ofsted inspect every 6 years.

What they checked

• The Ofsted Inspector observed the quality of the teaching during various activities. They then appraised the impact of

• this on the children’s learning.

• During the inspection, the Inspector talked with both staff and children, at appropriate moments throughout her visit, to

• further her insight.

• She joined Paula in a “Learning Walk’ discussing the Pre-school Curriculum in detail, finding out about what the Pre-

• school’s Intent, Implementation and Outcomes for children’s learning are.

• Joint observations were also undertaken by the Ofsted Inspector, in tandem with Paula as Manager.

• She found out about how we support children with additional needs and how we help children make the smooth

• transition to school.

• Documentation was checked by the Inspector. This included ensuring that staff are checked in terms of suitability,

• training and qualifications for the job and ensured that all staff had been checked and deemed suitable for working with children.

• The Inspector also spoke with parents during her visit. All such comments and feedback were taken into consideration

• when putting together the final Ofsted Report.

The report highlighted what great work goes on at our Pre-school on a daily basis. We are proud of the hard work and commitment of the team and all the glowing remarks made by the inspector not only in the report but at numerous times throughout the inspection.

Conclusion

In conclusion, although we were worried, like many other settings about our financial security on an ongoing basis, and in particular this year with increased heating bills and wage rises. Despite this, we have still managed to have a very successful year. Thanks to your support and our fantastic staff we know that our setting despite all these worries will move forward and go on providing a wonderful community 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.

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 FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31STDECEIMBER 2023 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNTS Recei Fees Received Staffordshire C.C. Apprentice Incentive Donations Sale of Photos/DVD's Funfit Fund Raising Svieatshirts 2022 11,387.00 88,656.28 1,500.00 100.00 2023 14,984.50 87,834.89 1,500.00 6.00 Pavments: 2022 Wages 74,291.32 Inland Revenue 3,074.62 Insurance 1,111.50 Ofsted Fees 50.00 Fees/Subscriptions 494.43 Rent 8,240.00 stationary,￿rinting 1.641.43 Refreshments 678.91 Garden Maintenance 1.603.67 Telephone/Postage 270.22 ResoUrceS￿qUIp. 4,974.79 Celebrations 1,273.85 Sweatshirts 273.80 Heat/Light 1,788.30 Training 868.16 Sundry F.xpenses 2023 84,074.32 635.18 1,144.39 50.00 545.40 8,240.00 1,721.20 711.62 485.56 208.96 5,141.27 1,008.95 393.98 1,160.06 330.50 789.90 440.00 955.38 120.00 849.00 561.63 215.00 TOTAL £103 158.66 £105 951.02 TOTAL £101 87.33 £106 641.29 resented B 2022 2023 Excess of Receipts over Pavments Balance as at beginning of the year 1.871.33 39 i26.90 (690.27) 41 198.23 Balance as at end of year £41198.23 £40 507.96 STATEMENT OF ASSETS AT 3151 DECEMBER 2023 2022 41,025.39 172.84 £41 198.23 202.1 39,792.82 715.14 £40 507.96 Bank Current Account Cash in hand TOTAL ASSETS

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 2023 which is set out on the attached page. Res ective res onsibilities 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 thc basis of procedures specified in thc General Directions giNen bj. the Charity Commissioners under Section 43 (7) (b) of the Act, whether particular matters have come to my attention. Basis of Inde endent Examiner's Statement. My examination was carried out in accordance ￿th 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. Inde endent examiners ualified statement. In connection with my examination: no n￿tter has come to my attention:_ (i) 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 ihe Act have not been met; or {2) to which, in m! opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper undersLqnding of the accounts to be leached. CAGrakaM Carol Graham Lyonesse House Lower Strand St Mary's Isles ofscilly TR21 OPS Iiih January 2023