Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report
Year Ended 30th September 2024
c/o Applecroft School, 14 Applecroft Road, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6JZ E: pta@applecroft.herts.sch.uk Registered Charity Number 1063987
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
The Charity’s Purpose
Applecroft School Parent Teacher Association, herein referred to as Applecroft PTA, is a Registered Charity (number 1063987). Applecroft PTA works to support Applecroft School and was registered in its current legal form on 15 August 1997.
Structure and appointment of Trustees
The core committee shall be a minimum of four trustees (Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer, Secretary), supported by a wider committee of parent and teacher volunteers.
Trustees are elected at the Annual General Meeting. Appointment as a trustee shall be by invitation of nominations from the current trustees/wider committee and be limited to parents/carers of children enrolled and teachers working in Applecroft School. All nominations will require to be seconded prior to appointment. In the event of a tie, the trustees will be required to vote. The term of office of each trustee shall be one year with the possibility of re-appointment.
The Association is keen to ensure that it is managed by trustees with a broad range of skills. We are confident that we have the skills needed to manage the Association with regard to its finances and administration.
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
Our Trustees
David Gardner – Chair
David has three children that attended Applecroft and two are still there. He's a serving Crew Commander for the fire service at London Luton Airport, a director for the family business producing and selling maths textbooks and also drives emergency ambulances for the NHS in his spare time.
Mubanga Mwelwa - Vice Chair
Mubanga has three children at Applecroft. Mubanga is a Governance, Business & Change Management professional. Currently, she works in transport supporting leaders in her organisation to deliver the Mayor of London’s Transport Strategy.
Arwen Hudspith – Treasurer
Arwen has two children at Applecroft. She is currently on a career break to look after her children. She is a Chartered Accountant and has worked with several FTSE companies in their group finance teams.
Alexis Lock – Secretary
Alexis is a parent to two children, both of whom are currently at Applecroft. She is PA to the Exec Chair and MD of a company that offers various services and solutions to help businesses achieve their goals, such as cloud, data, cyber and CX.
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
Objectives and activities
The Objects defined in our Constitution are to advance the education of pupils in the School in particular by
a) developing effective relationships between the staff, parents and others associated with the School;
b) engaging in activities or providing facilities or equipment which support the School and advance the education of the pupils’.
The charity organises a number of activities as part of its fundraising calendar. All activities are planned and executed by members and volunteers of the PTA, calling in additional help from parents and teaching staff where available.
Achievements and Performance in 2023/24
This year we have scaled back our events to those that are less volunteer dependent. We have made current year event profits of £10.2k (nine months to September 2023: £9.2k).
Camp Applecroft made a profit of £2.1k (nine months to September 2023: £2.2k). We increased the ticket price slightly to cover the increase in pizza costs.
Frosty Friday made a profit of £1.1k, and sports day made a profit of £0.2k. These weren’t tracked separately in the prior period and were included within the summer fete profit of £4.5k. We did not run a summer fete this year, as it was heavily dependent on volunteers.
The Quiz night made a profit of £1k (2023: £0.9k).
Christmas events, including hamper raffle, wreath making, christmas shop and christmas show sales raised £2.2k. Due to the short year, these items were not included in the prior year.
Other events, including happy bags, easy fundraising and The School Lottery raised £1.8k (nine months to September 2023: £1.7k).
The fireworks 2023 event made £4.0k with some of this included in the prior year. Fireworks 2024 event had some profit included within this year, and some will be in the following financial year. Due to the timing of year end, the profit will be split across financial years. We can amend the year end in 2026 to avoid this ongoing issue.
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
We agreed to donate money to assist with the cost of the following items during the year:
Reception work bench £0.7k Gardening club £0.4k Themed weeks £0.9k Christmas items £0.8k Benches for playground £0.5k Literacy gold/engaging eyes £1.0k School song recording and centenary Workshops and Performances £2.6k celebrations £1.2k DT and consumables £1.7k Walk to school week £0.2k Books £1.3k Bikes and helmets £0.3k French dictionaries £0.1k School trip top up £0.5k Nursery, music and other £0.9k Table tennis table £0.4k
We spent more than expected on consumable and general items due to issues with the school budget.
We discussed the available fund with the wider Applecroft PTA volunteer group, including staff members and agreed to encourage suggestions for funding donations as we have a healthy balance in available funds at the end of the year of £32.7k
We have agreed to donate money on an annual basis for some requests (a few examples being library books; shakespeare workshop; sports day lollies etc). These will be reviewed and approved in each financial year.
Our Finances
Please see the attached document, Accounts for Year Ended 30 September 2024.
Our main source of funding is from those events run during the year. In the year to September 2024, we raised £10.2k.
The cash position at year end was as follows:
£30.3k – Opening £2.4k – Movement £32.7k – Closing
No Reserve Fund was established during this accounting period.
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
The Future
Alexis will be stepping down after the following financial year. Rachel Cooke has agreed to take over as Secretary. She has two children at the school and has experience working with schools and charities. Alexis will hand over to Rachel during the next financial year.
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
Applecroft School PTA Annual Report For The Year to 30 September 2024
Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of Applecroft PTA
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Applecroft School Parent Teacher Association for the nine month period ended 30 September 2023.
Responsibilities and basis of report
As the charity trustees of Applecroft School Parent Teacher Association you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent examiner’s statement
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
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accounting records were not kept in respect of the Trust as required by section 130 of the Act; or
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the accounts do not accord with those records.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Mark Hawkins (approved via email)
Mark Hawkins
Fellow Chartered Accountant ("FCA")