OpenCharities

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

2025-08-31-accounts

DUXFORD PRESCHOOL

REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31[ST] AUGUST 2025

Principal Address: c/o 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 2024
31		 08 2025

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
7
8
9
1
0
1
1
1
2		 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 12.09.2024
Catherine Dunn Trustee 21.01.22 to present day
Karla Marwood Trustee 04.07.23 to present day
Kayleigh Orrock Trustee 18.11.24 to present day
Charlotte Tomlinson Trustee 04.07.23 to 13.10.25
Alice Thompson Trustee 04.07.23 to 13.10.25
Kayleigh Orrock Trustee 18.11.24 to present day
Sophie Eyeington Trustee 13.10.25 to present day
Zoey Rigaut-Dimartino Trustee 13.10.25 to present day
Fabiana DeOliviera
Delcanton		 Trustee 13.10.25 to present day
Kelly McClain Hathaway Trustee 13.10.25 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

2

Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser Name
Address		 Type of adviser Name
Address		 Type of adviser Name
Address
Local Authority
Early Years
Advisor		 Charlotte Sale Cambridge County Council

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

Preschool Manager: Katie Draper to 4[th] April 2025, with Michelle Williams taking over from this date.

3

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing document

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

How the charity is constituted

[Trust ]

Trustee selection methods

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

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

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 consisted of one Manager, 2 Deputy Managers and a bookkeeper. 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 activities and equipment.

4

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:

5

Section D Achievements and performance

Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year

Overview

During the 2024-2025 period, the Preschool continued to open for 38 weeks of the year, offering up-to 30 hours of early years education and care to children 2 ¼ to 5 years old. We have continued to offer 15/30 hours per week free of charge to eligible children as part of the central government's Early Years Funding program. In addition, we offer private places to those families who do not yet qualify for funding. We started the year at 32 children with 79% occupancy (2024: 80%), which by the summer term had increased to 33 children and 89% occupancy (2024: 100%). Of the 33 children on roll, 14 children left to move onto reception at the end of the Summer Term, 4 left due to moves out of the area, leaving just 15 children remaining for the Autumn Term 2025. Following our ‘Outstanding’ rating our wonderful staff have continued to provide the children with first class support and early years education, offering a wide variety of opportunities to extend the children's learning through open-ended activities and encouraging them to become curious and independent learners. The Preschool is determined to make an ongoing effort to improve both the level of care provided to the children and the business practices employed by the Preschool. The senior management team continually seek to further their knowledge through involvement in groups and forums and undertake additional CPD regularly. In addition to listening to staff and Committee members, the families are invited to give feedback using the annual questionnaire, the result of which are incorporated into practice. With the news of our grading circulating in the community, together with the roll out of funding to children aged 9m and over, the Preschool saw a steady increase in the number of applications received throughout the year. However, due to significant staffing changes which took place during the Summer Term, we were not able to offer places to these children. After a long period with no movement, a Lease has now been agreed with the school via solicitors on favourable terms which gives us much more security and stability. One consequence of this is that the Preschool will be responsible for the repair and maintenance of the building and plant equipment, which will naturally result in an increase in maintenance costs in previous years, but when combined with the overall reduction in the rental payment, it is hoped that this will not exceed prior years’ rent.

The Preschool website was also refreshed during the year, moving to a new technical architecture. There as a significant amount of work required to transfer over all the data and continues to be a work in progress for the 25-26 academic year.

Staffing The senior team for the first two terms of the 2024-2025 academic year comprised the Manager, two Deputies and 4 Preschool Practitioners. At Easter, the Manager (Katie Draper) decided to take a role with the Local Authority, and Michelle Williams was promoted the position from Deputy. At the same time, an additional unqualified Practitioner and an Administrator were recruited to assist with the change in roles among the team as well as to provide cover for maternity leave for one of the practitioners.

A decision was also made to adjust the staffing to allow for an additional team member to work solely in the morning sessions. This provided us with the

6

Section D Achievements and performance

opportunity to increase the number places for 2-year-olds in the morning sessions, better suits their routines.

We continue to strongly believe in the continuing professional development of our staff and provided considerable opportunities for them to refresh their knowledge and qualifications in:

The management team also attend termly Leadership & Governance Briefings, and Early Years Foundation Forums provided by the Local Authority.

Fees

The Trustees chose not to make any increase to the fee rate for the academic year whilst reserves remain high. We received a small increase in our rate of funding from the Local Authority for 3- and 4-year-olds (to £5.66 from £5.40), as well as the 2-year rate (to £8.15 from £8.00). The Fair Funding and Consumables Supplement was paid by 96% of families voluntarily, which was a significant increase from 68% in 2024.

Fundraising & Grants

The Preschool did not undertake any planned fundraising throughout the year but apply to the Stansted Passenger Community Fund for a contribution towards outdoor benches, and were successfully awarded £576.Together with the annual commission from Preschool photographs (£53.34) and the sale of other unwanted resources, a further £262 was raised, resulting in fundraising of £891.34. The Preschool was also a beneficiary of an Early Years Expansion grant from the Local Authority (£1659.60) which was given to support the roll out of the expanded funded entitlement.

Future

The funding rates set by central government continue to be at a level lower than the actual running costs of the setting. As more children are accessing funded hours, our income is naturally limited. When combined with the significant increases to the National Minimum Wage that have been made over the past few years, we are keeping a close eye on ensuring the Preschool remains sustainable.

The 2025-2026 academic year started with a much lower occupancy rate than previous years (67%), and we have found that there has been an overall reduction in the number of families enquiring and subsequently taking up a place. Whilst it is difficult to determine exactly why, it is suspected that this is also an impact on the roll out of funding from 9 months of age; if a family is entitled to funding, they are likely to have secured a place at a setting long before they reach the admissions age at Duxford of 2 years and 3 months. We are therefore actively looking for ways to promote the spaces we have to families that don’t already have a relationship with us and will continue this with open days during the summer and attending local events and groups where we can.

Section E Financial review

7

Brief statement of the

charity’s policy on reserves

Given the increase in the operational costs of the Preschool, the Preschool’s Reserves Policy has been updated to keep reserves of approximately £53,000; a contingency sum which provides for 1 terms expenditure and redundancy obligations.

Accumulated funds still exceed the Early Years Alliance recommendation to hold 3 months’ running costs in reserve. The Preschool Trustees began measures during the year to re-invest this surplus back into the charity to further its aims (i.e. to benefit the children) through the purchase of additional equipment and toys. However, it is clear that the hanging landscape of the Early Years Sector is having an impact on admission numbers for the coming years, which when combined with annual significant increases to the National Minimum wage and resulting Employers National Insurance and Pensions contributions means that the Trustees will have to ensure that regard is given to the long-term sustainability of the setting.

Details of any funds materially in deficit

None.

Further financial review details (Optional information)

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

We ended the 2024-2025 year with an unrestricted loss of income over expenditure of £23,237.86. The balance of reserves brought forward on 01/09/24 was £130,316.36 and the balance carried forward has therefore decreased to £107,078.50 as of 31/08/25.

Over the period, income totalled £135,054.79 (2024: £191,803.80), a decrease of £56,749.01. It should be noted that during the prior financial year, a substantial donation from the Local Authority had been received towards the garden refurbishment (£48,922.01). Adjusting for this, the year-on year decrease would have been £7,827 which is directly attributable to a reduction in child attendance over the year, reducing income from operations.

The Charity’s principal source of income comes from the local authority for the provision of 15 or 30 hours of funded education for eligible children. This ‘early years funding’ income totalled £87,432.21 (2024: £106,191.35), representing 64.7% of our total income. Fees paid for additional sessions and for non— funded places totalled £36,143.65 (2024: £24,383.00) representing 26.7. The Fair Funding and Consumable supplement raised a further £5,173.25 (2023: £3,351.75) which was an increase of £1,821.50 from the previous year. The remaining 4.7% of income was from a mixture of fundraising, donations, miscellaneous fees and grants.

Over the same period, expenditure totalled £158,292.65 (2024: £131,726.29), an increase in operational expenditure of £26,566.36. £23,941.91 of this increase is directly attributable to an increase in Wages, Pensions and Employers NI, with the remaining increase evenly distributed across the remaining operating expenses. Staffing costs as a percentage of overall expenditure remains broadly consistent at 80.4% (2024: 78.5%). The next largest expenditure was rent, totalling £9,684.85 (2024: £6,036.36) with all additional running expenses of the preschool accounting for the remaining 13% (£21,306.87 2024: £22,330.91). As can be seen from the year-on-year comparatives, the Preschool remains effective in managing the cost base in all areas which are not subject to annual increases from legislative change.

Section F Other optional information

8

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) Karla Marwood Position (e.g. Secretary, Trustee Chair, etc) Date

9

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees Charity Name Duxford Preschool On accounts for the year 30 Augst 2025 Charity no 1165461 ended (if any) Set out on pages 1 to 13 I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31/08/2025. Responsibilities and As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the basis of report 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 I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect. 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.

Signed: Date: 11/06/2026 Name: Rebecca Coles FCCA Relevant professional ACCA qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: Newton Hall, Town Street, Newton, Cambridge CB22 7ZE

10

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 .

11

DUXFORD PRESCHOOL REGISTERED CHARITY NO 1165461 RECIEPTS AND PAYMENTS FOR THE YEAR TO 31 AUGUST 2025

Notes
Income
Early Years Funding
Invoiced Fees
DAF & SENIF
Fair Funding & Consumables Fee
Registration & Late Fee
Ukraine Funding
Uniform Sales
Fundraising
Grants
Donations
Gift Aid
Insurance Claim Pay-out
Misc. Income		 Unrestricted
£		 Restricted
Total ‘25
£
£
-
87,432
-
36,144
662		 Total ‘24
£
87,432 106,191
36,144 24,383
662 -
5,173 -
5,173		 3,352
655 -
655
-
-		 925
- 6,550
- -
-		 127
315 -
315		 844
1,660 576
2,236		 -
1,565 -
1,565		 48,922
- -
-		 151
- -
-		 358
873 -
873		 -
Total Income 134,479 576
135,055		 191,803
Less Operating Expenses
Wages Pensions PAYE
Rent
Telephone & Internet
Website & Email
Toys & Resources
Furniture & Equipment
Art & Craft Consumable
Snacks
Stationery & Postage
Health & Hygiene Equipment
Repairs & Maintenance
End of Term Gifts
Special Events
Marketing & Advertising
Insurance
Professional Fees
DBS Checks
Subscriptions
Uniform & Clothing
Payroll & Accountancy Services
Staff Training
Fundraising Expenses
Ukraine Funding Spend
Fire Refurbishment Expenses		 -
127,301
-
9,685
-
551
-
3,007
-
3,477
576
3,427
-
335
-
738
-
468
-
696
-
1,144
-
328
-
2,257
-
-
-
1,551
-
203
-
269
-
598
-
432
-
774
-
1,054
127,301 103,359
9,685 6,036
551 422
169
606
4.105
327
780
209
791
630
1,108
25
537
1099
3,007
3,477
2,851
335
738
468
696
1,144
328
2,257
-
1,551
203 419
269 102
598 365
432 73
774 444
1,054 689
- -
-		 30
- -
-		 5,476
- -
-		 3,922
Total Operating Expenses 157,717 576
158,293		 131,726
Surplus/Deficit -23,238 -
-23,238		 60,078
Cash balances b/f 130,316 -
130,316		 70,239
Balances c/f 107,078 -
107,079		 130,316

12

DUXFORD PRESCHOOL REGISTERED CHARITY NO 1165461 STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES AS AT 31 AUGUST 2025

Notes
RESERVES
Balance b/f
Excess income over expenditure
Total reserves
CASH FUNDS
Current Banking Account
Savings Account
Total cash funds
LIABILITIES
Independent Examination
Early Years Funding for 2024-2025
3
PAYE & NI
Total liabilities
FUNDS OF THE CHARITY
Restricted funds
Unrestricted funds
Total charity funds		 2025
£
130,316
-23,238
107,079
107,079
-
107,079
180
17,124
-
17,304
-
107.079
107,079		 2024
£
70,239
60,078
130,316
130,316
-
130,316
180
22,972
90
30,343
-
130,316
130.316

Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31[st] August 2025.

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 EARLY YEARS FUNDING

£17,124.04 of Early Years Funding relating to Autumn Term 2025 was received on 12th August 2025.

13