(Registered Charity No. 1133135) Annual Report and Financial Statements For year ended 31 August 2021
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Rainbow Preschool
Trustees’ Annual Report for the year 1 September 2020 to 31 August 2021
Reference and administration details
Address Methodist Church Spring Lane Colden Common Winchester SO21 1SB
Names of charity trustees
| Committee 17 Sept 2020 – 29 Sept 2021 |
Changes at AGM 29 Sept 2021 |
Committee 29 Sept 2021 - Current |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Chair | Mark Greenhalgh | RESIGNED | Victoria Hammond |
| Vice Chair | Suzanne Dew | RESIGNED | Ian Thomas |
| Secretary | Emma Mobsby | NO CHANGE | Emma Mobsby |
| Treasurer | Brian Crockford | RESIGNED | Ben Beech |
| Charlotte Crockford | RESIGNED | ||
| Victoria Hammond | BECAME CHAIR | ||
| Emma Campbell | RESIGNED | ||
| Kate Zurowski |
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Structure, governance and management
Rainbow Preschool is a registered charity (number 1133135), which has adopted the Pre-school Learning Alliance Model Pre-school Constitution (2011) within which it operates (adopted at EGM 8 March 2016). The preschool is an association consisting of Family members (parents or guardians of the children attending the preschool) and Affiliate members (individuals interested in supporting the aims of the preschool). Trustees (Officers and Committee members) are elected for one year at the Annual General Meeting held in June. Retiring Officers and Committee members are eligible for re-election unless they have already served on the Committee in any capacity for ten consecutive years. The preschool is a registered member of the Pre-school Learning Alliance and also with Ofsted.
Objectives and activities
The aims of the preschool are to enhance the development and education of children, primarily under statutory school age, by encouraging parents to understand and provide for the needs of their children through community groups. The preschool offers a safe, happy and stimulating environment, where children learn through play in a wide range of activities whilst fulfilling the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. We acknowledge the right of parents to take responsibility for and to become involved in the activities of our group and we offer opportunities for all children, whatever their race, culture, religion, means or ability. We encourage the study of the needs of all children and their families and promote public interest in and recognition of such needs in our local area.
The preschool services the village of Colden Common, together with the local rural area in an effort to ensure that the public all have access and can benefit from the service provided within the preschool learning environment. The Trustees have considered the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit and by opening their doors to all local communities, feel they fulfil their requirements to demonstrate the services provided are for the benefit of the public.
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Achievements and performance
There were 44 children on role by the summer term and of these, 37 were in receipt of early years funding.
We had 8 members of staff and 1 member of staff on a temporary contract working at Rainbows during this period. All staff members hold appropriate early years qualifications. Our Manager and Deputy Manager are qualified to Foundation Degree.
Yearly Overview
Both the Chair and the Manager presented their yearly reports for 2020-2021 at the AGM. These reports are included below.
Due to the Financial year finishing in September, the accounts for 2020-2021 have not yet been audited. The Treasurer’s report for 2019-2020 was presented at the AGM. The Treasurer’s report for 2020-2021 will be presented at next years AGM.
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Chair’s Annual Report 2020-2021
The past year at Rainbows has been a special one given the ‘not so subtle elephant in the room’ of COVID. This has forced the setting into new ways of working, confronting both difficult decisions and situations; obviously this has not been just isolated to the work setting, it has reached all of us and our fam ilies at home. From the outset Tracy, Charlotte and the team have been incredible at rolling with the punches that this year has offered and dealt with the situations presented professionally, with class and with true Tracy style organisation. All this whilst not losing what makes Rainbows special the love and affection the staff are able to give our children. This is not and has never been a faceless organisation bent on merely looking after children whilst parents go to work. This is a place where our children love to attend because of the way in which they are treated, the manner in which they are cared for as one of their own and obviously having the great array of different play options open to them on a daily basis. This is the reason why my wife and I chose Rainbows – despite hearing the screams and shouting on a daily basis!
I feel slightly fraudulent as chair this year as there has been very little to do in terms of the face to face meetings or fundraising events that crop up in a regular year. No Nerf gun alley at ‘Common-have-a-go’, no fetes and no jumble sales combined with trips to charity shops afterwards - offloading the unwanted handaway’s. That said I don’t think Brian and Rach will be losing too much sleep over our financial position despite not raking in the ‘substantial’ monies from these events. Largely as this year, alongside the past few years, have seen record numbers of children, which is fantastic - as we like to keep the staff busy! In all seriousness it shows how amazing the setting is even without Tracy being able to sell it as she normally would do when people were allowed to attend the standard stay and play sessions. As with all successful business’ we have adapted in order to do what we can in this regard like we have with the Christmas and summer leaving parties, all were incredibly well received and really successful. I mean an ice cream van was inspired - the highlight of any child’s year is an ice cream! However, on the flipside our financial performance may be impaired when Victoria finally submits her expenses from all the present’s she’s bought and Rach’s long - awaited printer arrives.
As most of you know I am stepping down this AGM from the committee after a year as chair and being part of the committee for two years previous to that. Its fitting that we have managed to get to the Rising Sun this year as it was here that I committed to not committing too much, when joining as a floor member all that time ago. The AGM last year was virtual, as has every committee meeting tha t has followed to date, and whilst this has its benefits it would certainly be nice to see these meetings become face to face at every other meeting at least. However, that will be for the new committee to decide.
So my final act of chair is to thank everyone that has made Rainbows what it is and what it will continue to be. As a steward of Rainbows it has always been important to me to take responsibility of trying to leave the business in a better place than we found it, and it was in a really good place to start with! The whole committee around me have been brilliant in helping shape this and I know will continue to do this, plus they have all put up with me and my childish comments, thanks Suzanne for keeping me on the straight and narrow as vice chair! I know that Brian is stepping down too and I’d like to thank him for his sterling (see what I did there) work over the past few years. The treasurer’s job is difficult especially fitting it around normal work and life so a real genuine thanks for all that you have done. Thanks to the members of the sub committees as well, they have given up extra time to work on things for the staff that will provide some real longevity and
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clarity to roles now and moving forward, hopefully going someway to help future proof the setting. I hope the committee continues to do all they can to help the biggest asset that we have, the staff. I am very proud of how we have driven change to enable bonuses, presents and the reviewing contracts all with the lens of looking to the best for our employees. Which finally leads me on to the staff. What can I say about their hard work in difficult times, their love for our children, their dedication, their passion and desire to be there for us and our children. I think Ofsted summed it up with outstanding. My last thanks goes to Tracy, I’m sure you won’t miss having to organise me but thank you for all you do for the setting – you are Rainbows, you make it happen but remember you don’t have to do it on your own.
Mark Greenhalgh
Chair
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Manager’s Annual Report 2020-2021
We returned to Rainbows in September with the pandemic still ongoing. We still had some restrictions in place but the children didn’t seem to notice. We would like to thank the committee for all their support this year. It was very reassuring for the staff team to know that provisions were put in place to ensure they were financially covered should we have a covid incident or if they needed to isolate. I would also like to personally thank the staff team for their commitment to Rainbows throughout this time. We did really feel the pressure in January when we went back into lockdown and we were expected to just carry on. I know we were all worried how continuing to work may affect our own families, especially whilst we awaited the vaccinations.
During the Autumn term we acknowledged the significance of Remembrance Day, supported Children in Need and joined in with Nursery Rhyme week. The Methodist Church gifted each child with a lovely Christmas story book.
This year we performed our traditional Nativity without an audience as due to the current circumstances we were not able to invite the parents in to watch. However, parents did not miss out on seeing their children take part as we recorded it (four times!) and created a DVD.
We also had an in-house Christmas party with entertainment from the staff team and a surprise visit from our very own Father Christmas.
Unfortunately, we were back in Lockdown at the start of the Spring term. Many families decided to keep their children at home. We supported these families by providing activities on our Parent Facebook Page. W e hope that these daily challenges helped to entertain the children at home and keep their connection to Rainbows going.
During the Spring term we led the children through an exciting Chinese New Year Celebration, we supported World Book Day, enjoyed celebrating Red Nose Day as well as making pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. We also gave the children some lovely Book start packs on World Book Day.
We were very fortunate to be able to watch tadpoles changing into frogs again. We also welcomed three little ducklings to Rainbows. This was a lovely experience for the children and one we will definitely repeat. Thank you so much to Helen for looking after the tadpoles and ducklings so well outside of Rainbow opening hours, they were in good hands.
During the summer term we looked after ten very hungry caterpillars and watched them transform into butterflies before releasing them up at the park. We took pa rt in the Walk with Wheels campaign and won a Balance Bike for the children. We supported the village by joining them for the British Spring Clean. The children really enjoyed Anna from ZooLab coming into visit us with a variety of different creatures. We will definitely repeat again next year (maybe even twice!)
Our fundraising has been a bit restricted this year, no jumble sale or raffles at the Harvest, Christmas and Easter services etc. However, we still managed to come up with a couple of fundraising ideas. The children each created a handprint which was then transformed by All My Own Work into wonderful keepsakes and Christmas gifts for their families. We held a joint Easter Event with the other village preschool. We held a Bags2School collection. We would also like to thank Matt for undertaking a sponsored walk to raise funds to enable us to purchase waterproofs for the children. We would also like to thank Shauna for creating a wonderful Mud Kitchen for our allotment.
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Thanks to the fundraising we have purchased some great new equipment this year as well as receiving some lovely donations.
All staff have completed some essential online courses, Safeguarding and Food Hygiene. They have also completed a variety of other online courses during lockdown. These courses have given the staff an opportunity to gain knowledge and expertise enabling us to help and support the children in our care. We also welcomed Francesca Kitt for her Work Experience as part of her degree.
The children once again really enjoyed our allotment venture this year. It was a lovely safe outdoor space to take the children. We also won an Allotment award at their AGM, this was in an ‘activity’ category. We are always modifying our allotment to provide the best learning opportunities for our children. During the summer term we extended the area to incorporate a larger area for the children to move around and create with tyres, planks of wood etc. We have also created a small world area with diggers and trucks in the wood chip. A new seating area for the children to sit, chat and read books. We have two houses, one for the mud kitchen area and a second house for quiet/cosy play. The allotment is proving a wonderful learning and play area for the children and they really enjoy visiting it regularly.
Following last year’s success, we decided to have a Leavers Farewell but this time at the end of term just for the school starters. We organised entertainment from Big Cat Jungle Party and a visit from Marucci’s ice cream van. We then welcomed the parents to a short leaver’s presentation where the children received either a book bag or PE bag.
Lots of our usual activities and events didn’t happen once again this year including the Harvest service, Easter service, Tennis, Explorers, Summer outing, School visits (transition) and Sports day. However, this has given us an opportunity to stand back and evaluate the reasoning behind why we do each of these activities, maybe we could look at doing things differently in the future.
Committee meetings via zoom have been interesting this year but it will be nice to get back to face to face meetings.
This September we have enjoyed welcoming a lot of new families to Rainbows and hopefully some of the parents are on here tonight, to hear all about what we have been up to and possibly join our committee!!
...... and finally, I would like to say an especially big thank you this year (and what a year we have had once again!) to our staff, committee and admin as without their support and commitment we wouldn’t have the fantastic Outstanding preschool we can offer today.
Tracy Gilmour
Manager
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Treasurer’s Annual Report – Sept 2019 - Aug 2020
This year the preschool made a healthy Profit again this year, considering the committee had to increase staff wages again due to the national minimum wage and elected to provide a bonus all staff for their hard work throughout the year, which included a provision to include this for future years, other implications this year included the closure of the preschool, however, due to the fact that we were allowed to keep the grant we were able to weather the storm and continue to pay all of our staff. The preschool has also benefitted this year by having upto 50 children by the end of the year.
Once again the preschool worked hard this year with fundraising while we were able to. Which has allowed the preschool to purchase new toys and equipment, and also the entertainment for the Christmas party and the introduction of a number of chicks to show the growth of the chicks during the year.
During the year we were able to put in place a number of policies including how cash is handled, limits for payments and an expenses policy. These policies should help to provide a greater stability to the preschool for the coming years.
Brian Crockford
Treasurer
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Declaration
The Trustees report has been approved by the Management committee and signed on their behalf by
Mark Greenhalgh - Chair
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