2022-12-31-accounts

Trustees’ Annual Report for the period

From 01-Jan-2022 (Period start date) To 31-Dec-2022 (Period end date)

Charity name: L’ecole des Filous

Charity registration number: 1165754

Objectives and Activities

	SORP reference
Summary of the purposes of the charity as set out in its governing document	Para 1.17	To advance education in the French language and culture in such ways as the trustees shall think fit in East Hertfordshire and the surrounding area, in particular by providing tuition to bilingual children attending local schools who have an existing knowledge and understanding of the French language to enable them to practice the French language as an extra- curricular activity in order to extend their written and oral linguistic skills and by providing tuition to promote their understanding of the diverse cultures of the French speaking world.
Summary of the main activities in relation to those purposes for the public benefit, in particular, the activities, projects or services identified in the accounts.	Para 1.17 and 1.19	• Providing language tuitions to bilingual children in East Hertfordshire and surrounding areas every Saturday mornings during term time for 2 hours. The quality of teaching has been valued by our members. Our teachers are all native French speakers and either qualified teachers or experienced and as a result the improvements in the children’s language skills have been noticeable. Our aim is to maintain small classes (about 8 children per teacher in each class) in order to maintain the impact of teaching on each pupil. We had 4 classes in 2022 and 1 to 2 teaching assistants moving between classes in order to maintain that close relationship teacher/pupil or teaching assistant/pupil especially when there is a different level of aptitude in French within the same class. • Offering a French literature library with access for our students and their families. • Organising social and cultural events open to our students and their families.

		Through the years, we have arranged events linked to celebrations from all cultures, including French speaking countries. Examples of some of our events are listed below: ●Workshop + cineclub themed around specific events/celebrations such as Easter, Halloween, Christmas … ●Musical shows in collaboration with another French school in Enfield ●Trip to London to see films as part of the South Kensington Kids festival or puppet show organised by ‘les parapluies FLAM’ ●Yearly participation in the Ware Carnival ●End of year show followed by a picnic/buffet to celebrate ‘Bastille day’ ●Christmas show ●2 to 3 day summer holiday club in July for our students to enjoy activities taught in French
Statement confirming whether the trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit	Para 1.18	N/A

Additional information (optional)

You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:

SORP reference N/A Para 1.38 Policy on grant making N/A Para 1.38 Policy on social investment including program related investment N/A Para 1.38 Contribution made by volunteers N/A Other

Achievements and Performance

	SORP reference
Summary of the main achievements of the charity, identifying the difference the charity’s work has made to the circumstances of its beneficiaries and any wider benefits to society as a whole.	Para 1.20	This year was our seventh year as l’ecole des filous. We have carried on learning on managing the school post Covid, re-adapting our ways of working being back post Covid receiving extra advice and training through the FLAM program (Both trustees and teachers have benefited from these online and F2F courses). In parallel, we have carried on working on improving our communication with our current students and their families but also with new potential students via our Facebook pages and Mailchimp, as well as improving our use of Quickfile, a software to manage our invoices to parents and suppliers. We have also started using Seesaw to help with better and faster communication with the families and are still looking at improving this part of the regular comms for homework. Towards the end of 2022, we have had a lot of issues with our website losing access to it and therefore have done a lot of work in order to find appropriate web designers to rebuild it. This year again, we have achieved to transfer our passion of the French culture and language. One of our teachers led several lunch club activities based on ‘French’ specific themes such as ‘La galette des rois’ in January, ‘Pancake day’ in February, ‘Easter egg hunt’ in April, ‘Mother’s day’ in May or ‘Father’s day’ in June. We managed to take part again in the Carnival in Ware at the beginning of July and also re-organised our annual ‘end of year’ show mid July around ‘Bastille day’. As previous years, teaching the French language to children can be a challenge due to the different levels of speaking/understanding by the children within the same class due to the small size of the school, but the situation has been well managed again by the whole team of teachers, and all the pupils have shown great progress in their ability to understand, speak and write in French.

Additional information (optional)

You may choose to include further statements	You may choose to include further statements	where relevant about:
Achievements against objectives set	Para 1.41	See above for full details
Performance of fundraising activities against objectives set	Para 1.41	N/A
Investment performance against objectives	Para 1.41	N/A
Other		N/A

Financial Review

Financial Review
Review of the charity’s financial position at the end of the period	Para 1.21	Our classes are attended in school premises in Ware, Hertfordshire, that are rented by the charity (cost of renting of £9 per hour per classroom, i.e. £72 for each Saturday sessions). Despite being now in our seventh year running, we have decided to keep the tuition fees per term the same, i.e. £140 for one child, £266 for 2 children and £385 for 3 children (maintaining 5% discount for the 2nd sibling and 10% discount for the 3rd sibling). The account shows that we are still managing to achieve self-sufficiency, this year. We are still trying to build up a reserve in order to invest into more books and DVDs for our library and also to organise more workshops and a few days as holiday club, arrange new trips to French speaking shows in or around London in collaboration with other French schools and maybe ultimately arrange an exchange with a French school. It has again been difficult to retain our pupils (This year we have had just under 30 pupils attending our classes) so we are hoping this number will remain stable. In the future, we are still keeping in mind to maybe be able to open one or more classes to British children or adults alongside the bilingual children currently attending l’école des filous.
Statement explaining the policy for holding reserves stating why they are held	Para 1.22	N/A
Amount of reserves held	Para 1.22	None
Reasons for holding zero reserves	Para 1.22	Being in our seventh year running, we are still not holding a reserve yet in a separate bank account as we thought we still don’t have enough to put aside yet and we would like to spend the money accordingly to expand the school. We are aware that it is recommended, as a good practice, to hold a third of the running costs in a reserve account, and we are still hoping to be looking into this in the near future.
Details of fund materially in deficit	Para 1.24	N/A
Explanation of any uncertainties about the	Para 1.23

charity continuing as a going concern

Account – Year end 2022 (January to December)

Expenses			Income
Teachers fees and management cost	£5,714.00		Tuition fees: School	£9,799.00
School rental costs	£1,458.00		Lunch Club Activities	£380.50
Other expenses	£1,402.17
Insurance	£216.06
FLAM subscription	£106.00
Total expenses	8,896.23		Total income	£10,179.50
Profit	£1,283.27
Balance carried forward from 2021	£12,438.66
Balance at the end of 2022	£13,721.93

Additional information (optional) You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:

The charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising)	Para 1.47	The charity principal source of funds is the subscription fees from the families of the children joining in.
Investment policy and objectives including any social investment policy adopted	Para 1.46	N/A
A description of the principal risks facing the charity	Para 1.46	Due to the current increased cost of living, the number of pupils attending the school may decrease in the coming years.
Other		N/A

Structure, Governance and Management

Description of charity’s trusts:
Type of governing document (trust deed, royal charter)	Para 1.25	Constitution
How is the charity constituted? (e.g unincorporated association, CIO)	Para 1.25	Charitable Incorporated Organisation
Trustee selection methods including details of any constitutional provisions e.g. election to post or name of any person or body entitled to appoint one or more trustees	Para 1.25	Trustees are appointed by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of charity trustees.

Additional information (optional)

You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:

Policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees	Para 1.51	As per constitution and including safeguarding training and DBS if deemed required.
The charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works	Para 1.51	Part of ‘ Parapluie FLAM’, French organisation grouping several Saturday morning schools teaching French and providing educational, cultural and administrative support.
Relationship with any related parties	Para 1.51	N/A
Other		N/A

Reference and Administrative details

Charity name	L’ecole des filous
Other name the charity uses
Registered charity number	1165754
Charity’s principal address	42 Heath drive WARE SG12 0RF

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

	Trustee name		Office (if any)	Dates acted if not for whole year		Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (if any)
1	Nadege Galle
2	Celine Pereira
3	Catherine O’Sullivan
4	Xavier Mutzig
5	Emilie VanBaalen			01-Sep-2022
Corporate trustees–names of		the directors at the date the report was approved
Director name
N/A		N/A			N/A
Name of trustees holding title to property belonging to the charity
Trustee name		Dates acted if not for whole year
N/A		N/A			N/A

Funds held as custodian trustees on behalf of others

Description of the assets N/A held in this capacity Name and objects of the N/A charity on whose behalf the assets are held and how this falls within the custodian charity’s objects Details of arrangements for N/A safe custody and segregation of such assets from the charity’s own assets

Additional information (optional)

Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser	Name	Address
N/A	N/A	N/A
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)
N/A	N/A	N/A

Exemptions from disclosure

Reason for non-disclosure of key personnel details

N/A

Other optional information

N/A

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