2021-08-31-accounts

DUXFORD PRESCHOOL

REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31[ST] AUGUST 2021

Principal Address: Sunshine Room Duxford Primary School St John’s Street Duxford CB22 4RA

Independent Examiner: Rebecca Coles Newton Hall, Town Street, Newton, Cambridge, CB22 7ZE

A charitable incorporated organisation registered in England and Wales Registered Charity no: 1165461 OFSTED Unique Reference no: EY50063

Trustees' Annual Report for theperiod
From	Period start date			To	Period end date
	01	09	2020		31	08	2021

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name Duxford Preschool

Other names charity is known by

Registered charity number (if any) 1165461

Charity's principal address Sunshine Room Duxford C of E Community Primary School St. Johns Street Duxford, Cambridge Postcode CB22 4RA

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

1 2 3 4 5 6	Trustee name	Office (if any)	Dates acted if not for whole year	Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (ifany)
	Stephen Burgess	Chair	01.10.16 to present day
	Natalie Hanlon	Treasurer	07.03.19 to present day
	Sally Hodges	Trustee	30.09.19 to present day
	Mark Crouch	Trustee	30.09.19 to 07.04.21
	Catherine Dunn	Trustee	21.01.22 to present day

Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)

Name Dates acted if not for whole year

Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser Name Address

Local Authority Early Years Ann Ackers Cambridge County Council Advisor

Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)

Preschool Manager: Pippa Eccleston

2

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing document

• (eg. trust deed, constitution)

Pre-School Learning Alliance Model CIO Constitution for Childcare Providers 2013, adopted on 12[th] January 2016

How the charity is constituted

• (eg. trust, association, company)

[Trust ]

Trustee selection methods

• (eg. appointed by, elected by)[Appointed by the current members of the Committee (Trustees) at the AGM ]

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:

• policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;

• the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;

• relationship with any related parties;

• trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.

Duxford Preschool is a registered charity that is run by a committee, primarily consisting of parents and carers of children in the setting. It is run as a Charitable Incorporated Organization (CIO). Our constitution requires a minimum of 3 Trustees, who have overall legal responsibility for the preschool.

The AGM often sees committee members stepping down; to ensure consistency for the Preschool, we have implemented a model which sees the majority of the financial and strategic management carried out by the Preschool Management team, with the Committee offering oversight and governance. The Committee therefore meets once a term (or more frequently as required) to discuss any issues, are in regular email contact and work collaboratively with the Preschool Management team. Trustees complete DBS checks in line with statutory requirements and induction and training take place as part of our regular meetings.

The Preschool management structure consists of one Manager, two Deputy Managers, and a Business Manager. The Preschool works regularly with many Cambridge County Council professionals, namely an Early Years Inclusion Advisor and the Local Inclusion Forum Team (consisting of Specialist Teachers, Health Visitors and Social Services representatives). We also attend Early Years Network and Briefing Sessions hosted by the Local Authority. We are additionally supported by an Early Years Improvement Advisor.

Our Preschool is on the site of the Duxford C of E Community Primary School and, although we are a separate body, we regularly meet with the Early Years team at the school to share ideas.

Trustees give their time for free and receive no financial benefit. We are a CIO to reduce the financial liability and risk to trustees. The Preschool policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and amended to reflect changes in best practice as well as statutory guidance. The environment is checked daily for H&S risk and we use risk assessments in relation to trips, activities, and equipment.

3

Section C Objectives and activities

Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)

The charity works for the public benefit having as its objects the development and education of children and young people in particular by: (1) promoting their care and safety; (2) promoting their education and promoting parental involvement; (3) promoting their health and wellbeing; (4) providing services to support them and their families and carers; (5) providing services to individuals holding membership of the CIO; and (6) furthering the aims of the Pre-school Learning Alliance.

In all of our work we (the trustees) have regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit. Our main activity is to deliver, within our fully inclusive setting for 2 ¼ –5-year olds, the Early Year Foundation Stage. In order to do this, we employ childcare managers and practitioners who undertake joint daily planning of activities to meet the needs and interests of the children attending our setting. We deploy a key person approach to ensure that the progress and well-being of all individual children is constantly monitored and feeds into future planning. We ensure that our staff are well trained and hence able to successfully meet the needs of the children in our care. We promote the importance of the learning environment and endeavour to make this as stimulating as possible. We listen to the views of children, parents and staff and use this feedback to inform our improvement work. We accurately assess our children and provide this information to Cambridge County Council as requested. We develop positive relationships with parents and carers and invite them into our setting as observers or helpers. We value all children as individuals and celebrate Britain’s diversity of culture of ethnicity. We help the children in our care to be happy and healthy. We have policies and procedures in place for all aspects of safeguarding, child protection and health and safety, and we use staff training days and meetings to ensure all staff are fluent in these. We follow the recommendations offered by our Cambridge County Council improvement advisor and the guidance available from the Early Years Alliance (formally the Preschool Learning Alliance).

Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:

• policy on grantmaking;

• policy programme related investment;

• contribution made by volunteers.

4

Section D Achievements and performance

Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year

Overview

It is fair to say that the 20-21 academic year was another challenging year for the Preschool. Following the fire on 31st July 2020, we worked tirelessly to reopen as soon as we could with minimal disruption to our families. The Local Authority generously agreed to provide us with temporary housing in a mobile portacabin unit on the grounds of Duxford School, as well as replace all our equipment and resources that had been destroyed in the fire, and we were able to move into our new ‘home’ on 12th October 2020 and re-opened to the children two weeks later.

Alongside the disruption caused by the fire, we have also had to contend with continued challenges presented by Covid-19. In January the whole country went back into lockdown although this time, Early Years settings were allowed to remain open to all children. Many families however, made the decision to keep their children at home so it was a quiet beginning to 2021 at the Preschool. We have been fortunate not to have had an outbreak in the Preschool, despite many children having to take PCR tests and we are thankful to all the parents for abiding by our safety measures put in place to minimise the risk of infection.

Despite the delayed start to the term and the changes to practice caused by Covid-19, the staff have done an amazing job with the children, offering a wide variety of opportunities to extend their learning through open—ended activities and encouraging them to become curious and independent learners. Covid-19 had had a huge impact on the children’s PSED skills (physical, social and emotional development) and the staff have focused extensively on supporting their friendships and social interactions.

In mid-June a child at Forest School made their way into the shallow river on the boundary of the site unaccompanied. They were removed from the water unharmed within minutes and following our procedures the incident was reported to Ofsted and the Charities Commission immediately. Ofsted suspended our registration pending their enquiries and the Preschool was closed for a period of 4 weeks while we reviewed all our procedures, policies, risk assessments and practices. As a result, we came to the decision to stop offering Forest School as part of our provision. Ofsted returned to review our changes and were extremely satisfied with our response, lifting our suspension on 14th July.

Numbers

The preschool started the year at 61% capacity, and by the summer term we had 100% occupancy which given the challenges of the year, was an amazing position to be in. 24 children left to move onto reception at the end of the Summer Term which left 13 children for the Autumn Term 2021.

Fees

We made no increase to our fee rate during the year (£6.00 for 2-year-olds and £5.50 for 3/4-year-olds), although we did receive a small increase in our rate of funding for 3 and 4 year olds to £4.20 from £4.14. The Fair Funding and Consumables Supplement of 50p per funded was introduced in September, with 65% of families choosing to pay this.

Fundraising

Following the fire, a JustGiving Donations page was started by a member of the local community and the donations rapidly grew to approximately £21,000. We were completely overwhelmed by the generosity of our neighbours and the Preschool received 1/3 share of these funds, alongside other donations from individuals and company who wanted to support our cause. This money has been spent on some of the additional costs incurred in setting up the Preschool

5

Section D Achievements and performance

from scratch and the remaining funds have been designated to cover costs that will be incurred when we move into our permanent home.

Staff

Our wonderful staff have continued to provide the children with first class support, and the team welcomed new practitioners in October; Katie Draper, Chloe Jeggo and Tracey Taylor. Heather Nedzynski (Forest School Leader) left in June to pursue her interests in running Forest School for home educated children, and Pippa Eccleston (Manager) resigned in August to spend more time supporting her family. Following a through recruitment process, we were delighted to promote Katie Draper to the Manager’s role (from end of September 21). Katie has a Level 5 Early Years’ qualification and has many years’ experience managing a day nursery in the local area. Future Pippa and Natalie worked closely with the Architects and Developers chosen by the Local Authority during the year, to design a new permanent building for the Preschool. Although there have been some small delays to the planning, it is hoped that the new structure will be ready for occupation by Easter 2023. The new space will be double the size of the existing mobile unit, offering 100m2 of floor space for the children to enjoy together with a dedicated laundry, kitchen, office, meeting room, ‘quiet room’ and huge outdoor space. It is extremely exciting to see the ideas come together, and the new space offers a lot of opportunity for the Preschool. Whilst the current mobile unit is occupied with a licence granting the use of the space between certain hours only, the new building is likely to be offered on a leasehold basis which means that the Preschool will have the ability to extend our opening hours and number of weeks that we’re open a year. Duxford does not offer any year-round provision for early years aged children, so it would be fantastic to be able to offer this facility to the local community. We currently have a reasonable number of children on the waiting list to join the Preschool in during the 21-22 academic year which is a great position to be in following the uncertainties of the last two years. However, our rate of growth could be limited if we’re unable to recruit staff as we have had very little interest from suitable candidates for two Practitioner Roles that have been advertised. This reflects other settings’ experiences up and down the country, and recruitment is likely to be our biggest challenge during this academic year. Following our engagement with Ofsted at the end of last year, we are also expecting an inspection at some point during the Autumn Term.

Section E Financial review

Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves

There has been no change to the Preschool’s Reserves Policy which aims to keep reserves of approximately £33,000; a contingency sum which provides for 1 terms expenditure and redundancy obligations. Accumulated funds now exceed the Early Years Alliance recommendation to hold 3 months’ running costs in reserve. Ordinarily we would take measures to reduce these funds by re-investing any surplus back into the charity to further its aims (i.e. to benefit the children). However, we are aware that the Preschool will need to purchase large play equipment for the outside area of the new Preschool and will retain these funds for this purpose.

6

The Trustees have reviewed these uncertainties and are satisfied that the current level of reserves are sufficient to ensure the continued operation of the Preschool, especially in light of the current pandemic.

Details of any funds materially in deficit

None.

Further financial review details (Optional information)

We ended the 2020-2021 year with an unrestricted surplus of income over You may choose to include expenditure of £2,142. The balance of reserves brought forward on 01/09/20 additional information, where was £72,240 and the balance carried forward has therefore been increased to relevant about: £74,382 as of 31/08/21. • the charity’s principal sources of funds (including Over the period, income totalled £94,089 (2020: £103,275), which was a any fundraising); decrease of £9,186. However, during the 2020 period, a significant portion of the • how expenditure has income related to Covid-19 grants, insurance claims and donations following the supported the key objectives fire. Additionally, following the Preschool closure in June 2021, £15,121 of Early of the charity; Years Funding and Fee Income was refunded to the Local Authority and • investment policy and Parents, considerably reducing income from charitable activities through the objectives including any year. ethical investment policy adopted. During the same period, expenditure totalled £91,947 (2020: £84,368) representing an increase of approximately 8.2% on last year. This was primarily due to fire refurbishment expenses of £7,579 and a small increase in staffing costs following the rise in the NMW in April. However, we were extremely fortunate not to have incurred significant refurbishments costs following the fire; our insurance only covered us for £10,000 of losses but the Local Authority paid for approximately £45,000 of furniture, equipment, and resources.

Section F Other optional information

During the financial year, the Trustee were made aware of a savings account held in the name of Duxford Playgroup with a balance of £1,214. These funds had not been transferred when the charity re-registered at Duxford Preschool. This account has now been closed and the funds transferred to the Preschool. As a result, the comparative balances for 2019-2020 have been re-stated to include this balance in the reserves held by the Preschool.

Section G Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:

Signature(s)

Full name(s) Natalie Hanlon Position (e.g. Secretary, Chair, etc)[Treasurer for the period ] Date 6[th] June 2022

7

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Charity Name Duxford Preschool members of On accounts for the year 31 August 2021 ended Set out on pages 1 to 11 (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets) I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 / 08 / 2021 . Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report 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 the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act. Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

• accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or

• the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or

• the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair’ view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

• Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.

	I have no concerns and have come acros with the examination to which attention s proper understanding of the accounts to *Please delete the words in the brackets
Signed: Name: Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any): Address:
	Rebecca Coles FCCA
	ACCA
	Newton Hall, Town Street
	Newton, Cambridge
	CB22 7ZE

8

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of n/a any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

9

DUXFORD PRESCHOOL REGISTERED CHARITY NO 1165461 RECIEPTS AND PAYMENTS FOR THE YEAR TO 31 AUGUST 2021

Notes Unrestricted £ Income Early Years Funding 60,568 Invoiced Fees 12,516 Early Bird Income - Forest School Supplement 698 Fair Funding & Consumables Fee 1,986 Registration Fee 80 DAF & SENIF 2,838 Uniform Sales 543 Fundraising 111 Grants - Donations 10,866 Gift Aid - Special Events - COVID-19 Job Retention Scheme 466 COVID-19 Discretionary Grant - Insurance Claim Pay-out 3,417	Restricted Total 2021 £ £ - 60,568 - 12,516 - - - 698 - 1,986 - 80 - 2,838 - 543 - 111 - - - 10,866 - - - - - 466 - - - 3,417	Total 2020 £
		60,587
		15,777
		245
		663
		-
		-
		500
		-
		279
		1,000
		1,430
		18
		442
		2,434
		10,000
		9,900
Total Income 94,089	- 94,089	103,275
Less Operating Expenses Wages Pensions PAYE 70,088 Rent 3 5,063 Telephone & Internet 420 Website & Email 160 Toys & Resources 911 Furniture & Equipment 248 Forest School Equipment 41 Art & Craft Consumable 212 Snacks 496 Stationery & Postage 657 Health & Hygiene Equipment 779 Recruitment - Repairs & Maintenance 193 End of Term Gifts 266 Special Events 120 Marketing & Advertising - Insurance 994 Professional Fees 320 DBS Checks 312 Subscriptions 192 Uniform & Clothing 654 Payroll & Accountancy Services 508 Staff Training 1,733 Fundraising Expenses - Bank Charges - Fire Refurbishment Expenses 7,579	- 70,088 - 5,063 - 420 - 160 - 911 - 248 - 41 - 212 - 496 - 657 - 779 - - - 193 - 266 - 120 - - - 994 - 320 - 312 - 192 - 654 - 508 - 1,733 - - - - - 7,579 - 91,947 2,142 - 72,240 - 74,382
		68,226
		5,930
		307 174 617 539 35 141 710 692 714 - 771 177 539 - 604
		1,249
		104
		72
		-
		410
		2,104
		-
		14
		238
Total Operating Expenses 91,947		84,368
Surplus/Deficit 2,142		18,907
Cash balances b/f 72,240		53,333
Balances c/f 74,382		72,240

10

DUXFORD PRESCHOOL REGISTERED CHARITY NO 1165461 STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES AS AT 31 AUGUST 2021

Notes RESERVES Balance b/f Excess income over expenditure Total reserves CASH FUNDS Current Banking Account Savings Account Total cash funds LIABILITIES Rent 3 Independent Examination Total liabilities FUNDS OF THE CHARITY Restricted funds Unrestricted funds Total charity funds	2021 £ 72,240 2,142 74,382 74,382 - 74,382 1,636 180 1,816 - 74,382 74,382	2020 As restated £ 53,333 18,907
		72,240 71,026 1,214
		72,240 1,373 150
		1,523 - 72,240
		72,240

Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31[st] August 2021.

1 ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Basis of Accounting

The financial statements have been prepared on the receipts and payments basis.

Income

All income is included at the time of receipt.

Expenses

All expenditure is accounted for at the time of payment.

2 EQUIPMENT

All equipment purchased by the charity is included under these headings as an expense. No items have been capitalised.

3 RENT

Due to administrative reasons, the landlord did not invoice for rent during the financial year. The Trustees have therefore designated £1,636 of Reserves for this liability.

11