Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 ## GORING LITTLE FISHES ## PRESCHOOL Registered Charity No.: 1049215 GORING LITTLE FISHES PRESCHOOL TRUSTEE ANNUAL REPORT and ## FINANCIAL STATEMENT Year: 1[st] September 2024 to 31[st] August 2025 Page **1** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 ## **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 has 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 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 Parents/Carers on the transition to School. Page **2** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 ## **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 Risk Management documents and work alongside the manager to ensure everything is current and correct. Our membership for Year Ending 2025 was: Paul Redman - Chairman Susie Thomas - Secretary Gaynor Anderson-Easey - Treasurer Tania Hunt - Trustee 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 2025 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 Trustee meetings termly and additionally as required to keep the committee members fully up-to-date with the daily life at GLF. The GLF professional staff consisted of: Lesley W - Manager Tori R - Business Administrator Ricky M - Early Years Educator SENCO Amelia M – Deputy Manager, Early Years Educator, SENCO Petrina E - Deputy Manager, Early Years Educator Cia DG - Early Years Educator Laura C - Early Years Educator Connor W - Early Years Educator 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.goringlittlefishes.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 2025 ## **Chairperson’s Report 2025** Goring Little Fishes (GLF) is headed by our Manager, L Wake, who has been in post for over four years now. The GLF Trustees, a group of six, are made up of volunteers who continue to oversee the running of this Early Years setting. The preschool comprises employed (paid) staff, along with the afore mentioned Manager, they are all extremely well qualified, professional and are a talented team of people. The staff continue to put so much energy and enthusiasm into Little Fishes. At our most recent Ofsted inspection which was carried out in 2023 we were given a standard of ‘Good’. Each year the GLF Trustees send out a questionnaire to all parents for vital feedback, ideas and changes that could improve the GLF experience. This year we had another really good response to this and shared the results with the GLF staff for encouragement. All the comments were positive showing that the parents and children here are really well looked after and want for nothing. Our GLF Manager has again this year been volunteering to lead and run the Goring United Reformed Church’s parent and toddler group, named ‘Mini Fishes’, which meets once a week on a Monday morning in the church hall. This group is proving extremely popular with families in our local area. This provides a vital link between the preschool and the local church here in Goring. This summer we saw many children move on to school, 21 in total. The forecast for new starters in September was way down on our usual expectation with less than 5 new children starting. This has meant that the Trustees have had to hold a difficult meeting with the manager about the future of our preschool here in Goring. I’d like to thank the rest of the Little Fishes Trustees for their time and input into meetings, with special thanks to Gaynor, who has done 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 can continue as we move forward into 2026. E P Redman - GLF Chair Page **5** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 ## **Financial Review** For our year September 2024 to August 2025, our income looks like it has increased from £188.4K last year to £200.2K this year. However, this is not the case. Previously, I have included the EYPP funding from WSCC as a negative purchase under Expenditure as this particular funding is for ‘increasing the quality of the Provision’ whereas this year it is included in the funding from WSCC as it was not extractable. This means our income has actually decreased by £15.8K. In conjunction with the EYPP above, our costs come in at a £15.1K reduction from last year. This has given us a £369 loss. We have transitioned from the software platform called ‘Blossom’ to a different provider managed by Tapestry which helps for recording the Children’s Learning Journeys, invoicing and parent communication. At the end of the year, we have £87.8K 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. Staff have been encouraged to claim their travel expenses this year. ## **Payments** To help with the website maintenance, other technical support and in my role as Data Protection Officer up to the end of Term 1, I claimed a £1,281.28 payment, 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 ## **Fundraising** We held a fundraising event for Children in Need raising £64 and we raised for our general funds for GLF a total of £597.69 over the year. ## **Risks** The principal 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 one year ahead as an ongoing concern at any time. Page **6** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 ## **GORING LITTLE FISHES PRESCHOOL** Page **7** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 Page **8** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 Page **9** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 Page **10** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24 Goring Little Fishes Preschool Year End August 2025 ## **Contact Details** Address: Goring Little Fishes Preschool Goring United Reformed Church Shaftesbury Ave Worthing BN12 4EA Phone: 01903 244453 or 07803 001018 Emails: Staff - littlefishesfamily@gmail.com Committee/Trustees - glfcom@outlook.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|**17 Nov 2025**| |---|---|---|---| |Name|**E P Redman**|Position|**Chairman**| Page **11** of **11** Registered Charity :1094215 TAR 24