Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## GORING LITTLE FISHES ## PRESCHOOL Registered Charity No.: 1049215 GORING LITTLE FISHES PRESCHOOL TRUSTEE ANNUAL REPORT and ## FINANCIAL STATEMENT Year 1[st] September 2023 to 31[st] August 2024 Page **1** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## **Aim and Purpose** Goring Little Fishes (GLF) work to provide an outstanding and inclusive preschool for children who are under statutory school age. Our fully trained members of staff seek to educate, train and develop the abilities of each young child within their care preparing them for school. We are an unincorporated association governed by our Constitution. ## **Objectives and Activities** Goring Little Fishes is a Christian-based preschool based in Worthing, West Sussex. The Preschool is affiliated to Goring United Reformed Church and welcomes children from all faiths aged from two through to the statutory school-age. We are registered with Ofsted and follow the guidelines as advised by them. We support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and where English is not their first language. We may sponsor a number of children who may not be able to afford the fees prior to becoming eligible for funding from West Sussex County Council (WSCC). Although the focus of the group is on the children attending, we are of benefit to the local community providing job opportunities with training, and work placement experience for Students, Apprentices and Volunteers. The Trustees have taken the guidance of the Charities Commission on public benefit. ## **Achievements** Ofsted visited us for an inspection in 2023 which gave an overall judgement of ‘Good’. We can show that we provide preschool education that gives children a good solid grounding for starting school. The preschool have taken on the challenges and know what work is needed in the various areas to get us back up to our previous Ofsted inspection rating of ‘Outstanding’. We have provided work experience and education for several Students and an Apprentice through the year. We provide support and advice for Parent/Carers regarding their funding entitlement, additional needs, oral health, immunisations and perform the 2-year-old health check (previously done by WSCC Health Visitors). Our early identification of Children who may need extra assistance greatly helps them and their Parent/Carers transition to School. We have updated our Constitution (as per Charity Commission recommendation of 10-year reviews) and changed our name from Goring Little Fishes Playgroup to Goring Little Fishes Preschool this year. Page **2** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## **Structure and Management** The Management Committee, who are the Trustees, are responsible for overall management of the Goring Little Fishes Preschool and usually meet once each term. They give their time freely and receive no remuneration or benefits. The Trustees are made up of: Chairperson, Treasurer, Secretary, one Church Elder Representative and other members, giving a minimum of six and maximum of eight people. We can also be joined by two non-Trustees, Parent Representatives, as regulated by our Constitution. We regularly review our policies and have done so again this year including our Risk Management document as one of many reviewed and updated in 2024. Our membership for Year Ending 2024 was: Paul Redman - Chairman Susie Thomas – Secretary Gaynor Anderson-Easey – Treasurer Rosemary Terry – Church Elder Representative (Resigned YE2024) Bett Swierk – Church Elder Representative Barbara Hillman – Trustee Our Audit Committee members are: Barbara Hillman – Chair Susie Thomas – Secretary Bett Swierk – Member We follow our Constitution, Trustee Vetting and Volunteer Management Polices – which includes Safer Recruitment of Trustees and their Induction, to ensure that applicants are suitable to be a Trustee of GLF. Page **3** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 The vast majority of the daily running of Goring Little Fishes is delegated to our Manager, who works closely with her other staff members. She attends our Trustee meetings to keep the committee members fully up-to-date with daily life at GLF. The GLF professional staff consisted of: Lesley W - Manager Val G - Business Administrator (Resigned YE2024) Ricky M - Early Years Educator SENCO Amelia M – Early Years Educator SENCO Petrina E - Early Years Educator Cia DG - Early Years Educator David N - Student Connor W - Apprentice Siana-Leigh MB - Early Years Educator DBS checks are carried out prior to staff appointments as per our Safer Recruitment of Staff and Volunteer Management Policies. Health and Safety, Risk Assessments and other Preschool policies are always under review to be kept up to date with current legislation. Policies are kept on our website at www.goinglittlefishes.co.uk Training by Staff is always ongoing including NVQ Level 5 and 6 Childcare courses. Page **4** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## **Chairperson’s Report 2024** This year has been another busy one at Goring Little Fishes (GLF) headed by our Manager, L Wake, who has been in post since March 2021. The GLF Trustees, a group of six, are made up of volunteers who continue to oversee the running of this fantastic Early Years setting. The preschool comprises of employed (paid) staff, with the afore mentioned Manager. The staff are all extremely well qualified, professional and a talented team of people. The staff continue put so much energy and enthusiasm into Little Fishes, this was proven at our most recent Ofsted inspection which was carried out in 2023 achieving a standard of ‘Good’. Again, this year the GLF Trustees sent out a questionnaire to all parents for vital feedback, ideas and changes that could improve the GLF experience. Again, we had a good response and shared the results with the GLF staff for both encouragement and action where necessary to make any changes or improvements. A great deal of time has been spent this year reviewing our policies and risk assessments, updating and creating new documents where necessary. This is an ongoing process for which the Trustees are responsible and have been working closely with our Manager to ensure all our documents are correct and up-to-date. GLF have been working alongside the Church at Goring, with our GLF Manager helping voluntarily to lead and run the parent and toddler group, ‘Mini Fishes’, which is open once a week on a Monday morning in the church hall. This group is proving extremely popular with families in our local area. Finally, I’d like to thank the rest of the Little Fishes Trustees for their time and input into meetings, with again a special thank you to Gaynor, who does so much work for the GLF group in her own time outside the trustee meetings in her role as Treasurer. I do hope and pray that the good work that Goring Little Fishes is doing in and for our local community continues and I wish all here another happy and successful year going forward into 2025. Paul R - GLF Chair Page **5** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## **Financial Review** For our year September 2022 to August 2023, our income has increased from £152.2K last year to £188.4K this year. However, our costs jumped up in conjunction from £152.2K last year to £188.1K. This has given us a £310 profit. We had forecasted a bigger profit for this year, but the income was less than expected by £9K. This year we have bought new IT equipment, equipment for ‘Storybook’ bags, a toddler balance / climbing frame amongst a vast variety of toys and craft. We have also been updating our website and are transitioning to a new software platform called ‘Blossom’ which should aid in documentation, invoicing and parent communication. At the end of the year, we have £87.9K in the bank. The accounts will be independently examined by J Hoult, who is a chartered Accountant at Evansweir Ltd. ## **Expenses** No Trustees claimed mileage expenses this year. ## **Payments** To help with the transitioning to Blossom and with business administration between our retiring Administrator and our new Administrator, other technical support and in my role as Data Protection Officer, I claimed a £4,759 payment for the year, which was approved by the Audit Committee and in line with our Constitution. ## **Reserves Policy** Our Reserves Policy can be viewed on our website www.goringlittlefishes.co.uk The minimum level of Reserves to accommodate unforeseeable events, losses, repairs, redundancy or late payments from WSCC will be a minimum of £63K for 2024/25. ## **Fundraising** We raised a total of £275.78 via Easy Fund Raising (an online ‘bounce’ site which donates a very small percentage of purchases) and a commission from photos taken for Parent/Carers. Page **6** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## Liabilities - No overdraft, - No loans, - No money owed except ‘Ongoing Liabilities’ above which is based on notice required on Contracts for Staff, Administration, and Premises and Utilities. We have no Trusts, Endowments or Restricted Funds. The principle risks to the Charity are external influences. As most of our income comes from the filtered down amount by WSCC of the Government’s money for Early Years’ funding, we are at the whims of their policies (e.g. increasing the ratio of Staff to 2-year-olds from 4 to 5, increases of minimum wage and Employer National Insurance), and notification of any increases in funding (if any) are not until January, it is very difficult to forecast more than two year ahead as an ongoing concern at any time. Gaynor AE - Treasurer. ## **GORING LITTLE FISHES PRESCHOOL** Page **7** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 Page **8** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## **Independent Examiner’s Report** Page **9** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 Page **10** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2024 ## **Contact Details** Address: Goring Little Fishes Preschool Goring United Reformed Church Shaftesbury Ave Worthing BN12 4EA Phone: 01903 244453 or 07803 001018 Email: littlefishesfamily@gmail.com Website: www.goringlittlefishes.co.uk Registered Charity No.: 1049215 ## **This report is approved by the Trustees and signed on their behalf by** |Signature||Date|**11 Nov 2024**| |---|---|---|---| |Name|**P Redman**|Position|**Chair**| Page **11** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24