Butterflies Pre-School Didcot CIO End of Year Trustees Report
2024
Butterflies Pre-School has been affected from the cost-of-living expenses due to the increase in bills, national minimum wage increases, and the roll out of the new government funding for two-year-olds. Staff retention remains the same and as always, the mental wellbeing of both children and staff are still very much at the forefront. We have continued to notice children’s learning and development in the three prime areas have been significantly affected particularly communication and language and have addressed this through our language lead.
In January we had thirty-nine children on the role call. It was a very cold and busy term back from the Christmas break and we welcomed new children into the setting. The staff received new uniform to wear which looks very smart. The children loved exploring our new term book of The Colour Monster, and all activities involved based around the story including lots of talking about how they are feeling and what makes us happy, sad etc, and exploring colours. A letter was sent to parents about healthy lunchboxes and the importance of a balanced lunchbox.
In February we continued exploring more ideas from out term book – encouraging the children to express how they are feeling with their keyperson and putting a token in the relevant jar (happy, sad, scared etc). It was lovely to see that most children expressed they felt happy! We spent this term learning the Makaton for “happy” and “sad” and the colours “grey”, “blue”, “red”, “green”, “pink”, and “yellow”. We celebrated and learnt about Chinese New Year which was the Year of the Dragon, and the children enjoyed making their own dragon mask and trying our special snack of noodles, sweet and sour sauce, and prawn crackers.
March was another busy month, we started off by celebrating St David’s Day, exploring the daffodils we had in the setting and drawing them and making their own flowers out of playdough. observing, and painting daffodils. We took in World Book Day where children and staff came into the Pre-School in their pyjamas and brought their favourite book with them and we focused on the importance of sharing stories, encouraging the children to “talk about and through” the story with their peers and adults and valuing the importance of looking at a book. We introduced our term book “The Three Little Pigs”, the children have enjoyed acting out the story with puppets, counting the pigs at the maths table and making their own little piggie house from either brick, straw, or sticks. We also learnt the new termly Makaton signs based around all the events for this term.
We invited the children’s mummies to join them for a Mother’s Day afternoon tea on International Women’s Day. The children were extremely excited to welcome their Mummies to the party and surprise them with flowers. Finally, we finished the end of the month and term by exploring and celebrating Easter. The children demonstrated great
maths skills by matching and counting eggs, held lots of conversations about the arrival of Spring and had great fun bug spotting in the garden. We welcomed a new member of staff at the end of term.
April was a very short month after coming back from the Easter holidays. The children came back to the garden area looking refreshed and a new Butterflies Pre-School sign. The staff worked very hard over the Easter holidays getting the garden up together and we look forward to planting in the vegetable garden this term. We welcomed some new children into the setting and settled in well by the end of term. We had a member of staff who decided not to return from maternity leave and the temporary maternity cover member of staff was made permanent.
In May, we started our term book “The Tiger Who Came to Tea.” The children have been looking at different animals and their marking and patterns, and talking about the different texture, colours, and patterns. They demonstrated great mark making skills in copying the patterns and painting tiger stripes with black and orange paint. We have seen lovely roleplay from the children being the tiger in the role-play kitchen and the story has enabled the children to use their imagination within their play and using their observation skills. Following on with this theme, the children have enjoyed trying tiger bread for their snack! The children started planting and learning about the life cycle of sunflowers and were very excited to see them grow. We introduced a different kind of mark making towards the end of term – using pencil sticks to cover an area and then using erasers to make the marks, the children had great fun developing their fine motor skills and pen control. We finished the end of term with a staff training day on phonological awareness.
In June we started the term learning about and exploring our new 3D shapes with laminates. There were some great matchings of shapes and lots of new names being learnt – great mathematical learning and development. We invited the Butterflies daddies for a special Father’s Day treat afternoon. Lots of outdoor play and exploring together with cakes despite the intermittent rain!! The sun came out for our parent/carer garden event, where parents and carers could come in and take part in various activities in the garden with their children. They took part in lots of outdoor activities such as rock painting, planting seeds, making sensory hangers and cereal bird feeders. Lots of fun and learning was had by all.
We have also been exploring our Term Book “Whatever Next” which was very popular, and the children loved learning about space. Lots of fun activities around space, the moon and rockets and the children tried all different activities made available to them both indoors and outdoors to progress their skills in all seven areas of their learning. The termly Makaton signs were learnt based around the term book and other events like “Daddy” and “school”. The children were completely engaged in the term song using their Makaton “5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer”.
In July, our morning Sports Day session was cancelled sadly due to the weather and safety concerns but fortunately we were able to hold the afternoon Sports Day event, and all children were invited to attend. The theme was space, and the children enjoyed all the activities including a dressing up race as an alien with their own spaceship. The children all
received a wooden rocket medal and certificate and celebrated with a rocket ice lolly to cool off with!
The children were very busy making their own flowers using lots of different materials and textures for our garden display and some lovely conversations took place of what they used and why and had fun spotting their designs on the wall. We also invited the school leavers parents towards the end of the school year for the school leavers presentation where we said goodbye to many of our children going off to school. A member of staff left at the end of term.
September was a new school year, and we welcomed our new children who settled in well. “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?” was our term book and the children have enjoyed joining in with the phrases, matching animals to the pictures and learning all the different colours. Notable examples of effective communication and language. The children have also learnt about Autumn and about the different changes to the season. Lots of lovely conversations around pumpkins and their different sizes, colours, textures, and taste.
In October, we continued the theme of our term book and Autumn and the children were introduced to this terms Makaton signs and song. A reminder was sent to parents regarding illnesses and keeping children at home particularly at this time of year when seasonal cold/flu bugs are high and our absence procedure was also reiterated at this time. Following on from a child led interest, the children set up their own theatre with seating for the audience and used the people puppets to put on a show. Great opportunities for PSED learning and development and Expressive Arts and Design. The children also used their creativity skills to create their own butterfly for our wall which included a photo shoot to add to their individual butterfly. An advert was sent out advertising for a new Trustee to join our team.
November continued to be a busy month with various activities. Children took part in fundraising activities for Children in Need – Pudsey picture competition with lots of Pudsey activities to do and we raised £50.60 for Children in Need. We celebrated Diwali towards our Understanding of the World development, learning all about the Festival of Light, and had a special snack of poppadom’s, mango chutney, and rice. We took part in World Nursery Rhyme week which is always popular, and the children explored lots of different activities around the 5 Nursery Rhymes and took home a copy of the song in Makaton each day to continue their learning at home. Towards the end of the month, we learnt about oral health and hygiene and the importance of brushing their teeth. Through various resources and activities, the children understood why we brush our teeth and what foods are good and bad for our teeth and what routines they have at home and took a toothbrushing chart home to use and some useful information for parents. We employed an Early Years Apprentice, who started at the beginning of the month.
December is our busiest month. Lots of Christmas activities including our Christmas Craft Session for parent. Parents were invited to join their children in making different crafts and activities and listened to their Children singing some Christmas songs using Makaton. We have been continuing our term book of “The Gingerbread Man” where the children have
enjoyed sharing this story and using the resources in the play. We finished the term by having lots of festive fun whilst learning which included fine motor skills development in decorating the Christmas tree every day, “writing” and posting their letters for Santa and developing their maths development through lots of Christmas maths resources. Finally, we finished the term with a Christmas Party for all the children with a special visit from Santa! A new staff member joined this month to job share.
We have seen a few staff members come and go including maternity leave this year again this year but feel it is much more settled now. Financially, we have continued to tighten our belts due to the increasing cost of living expenses and national minimum wage increases etc. Again, we would like to praise both Management and staff for all their hard work throughout the year.
END OF YEAR TREASURERS REPORT – 2024
At the time of writing, we have not received a rent invoice for 2024 as we are still waiting for lease renewal confirmation from OCC and School utilities invoices for the year 2024. These predicted figures owing to the School/OCC add up to £9,750 which I have deducted from the carry forward below, (lease charges are unknown). I have also deducted savings totalling £20,000.
Carry forward £ 59,499.00
Actual income and expenditure
| Actual income and expenditure | |
|---|---|
| Income | 169,878.00 |
| Salaries | 109,678.00 |
| Rent | 0.00 |
| Payroll Services | 825.00 |
| Utilities (school & rubbish collection | 743.00 |
| Food + Materials (food bank still used, also includes PP, SEND etc) |
5,947.00 |
| Insurance, DBS, Memberships etc… | 1,786.00 |
| Equipment (PP,SEND etc money has been used, photocopier hire) |
736.00 |
| Maintenance (plumber, garden & electrician etc) | 1,332.00 |
| Training | 450.00 |
| Phone | 1,114.00 |
| Others | 3,981.00 |
-
See spreadsheet – savings need to be transferred into a saving account.
-
Lease- waiting for new lease (renewal) from OCC so charges are unknown at this stage.
Butterflies PS 2024
| Income | Jan | Feb | March | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fees | £23,190 | £2,263 | £15,226 | £33,069 | £2,652 | £24,313 | £0 | £353 | £25,160 | £2,430 | £19,538 | £21,685 | 169878.1 |
| Fundraisi | 27.25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Grant | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TOTAL IN | £23,218 | £2,263 | £15,226 | £33,069 | £2,652 | £24,313 | £0 | £353 | £25,160 | £2,430 | £19,538 | £21,685 | £169,878 |
Expenditure
Salaries £8,327.04 £8,620.29 £10,261.13 £9,198.70 £9,576.30 £9,302.55 £10,284.59 £8,140.14 £9,061.30 £8,558.28 £8,967.69 £9,380.47 £109,678 Rent £0.00 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 Utilities £52 £59 £63 £55 £80 £76 £55 £57 £55 £59 £77 £55 £743 Payroll £0 £0 £201 £576 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £48 £0 £0 £825 Materials £577 £643 £62 £494 £319 £496 £810 £26 £662 £515 £391 £950 £5,947 Advertisin £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 Insurance £192 £935 £48 £477 £0 £0 £0 £25 £48 £0 £62 £0 £1,786 Equipmen £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £163 £68 £148 £70 £141 £146 £736 Training £0 £0 £30 £15 £162 £140 £75 £0 £0 £0 £28 £0 £450 other £0 £240 £480 £0 £225 £70 £2,078 £55 £54 £210 £0 £570 £3,981 maintenan £95 £485 £0 £60 £0 £162 £120 £60 £0 £30 £60 £260 £1,332 savings £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 Phone £84 £99 £82 £92 £88 £117 £98 £100 £86 £88 £90 £90 £1,114
TOTAL EX £9,327 £11,082 £11,228 £10,968 £10,450 £10,364 £13,683 £8,531 £10,114 £9,578 £9,817 £11,452 126592.2 Opening ba £45,936 £59,827 £51,008 £55,007 £77,108 £69,309 £83,258 £69,576 £61,398 £76,444 £69,295 £79,016 Net Incom £13,891 -£8,819 £3,999 £22,101 -£7,798 £13,949 -£13,683 -£8,178 £15,046 -£7,148 £9,721 £10,233 £43,286 Closing bal £59,827 £51,008 £55,007 £77,108 £69,309 £83,258 £69,576 £61,398 £76,444 £69,295 £79,016 £89,249
Still to pay
| Rent (predicted fgure) | 6750 | |
|---|---|---|
| School utlites (predicted | fgure) | 3000 |
| savings | 25000 | |
| 34750 | ||
| Actual balance | £54,499 |
Berr Bookkee and Pa roll Servlces Mrs Ali50n Bery.2 Hill Vlew Lane, Wootton, Boars Hill, Oxford. OXI 5JT Tel.07 865 730064107890 503392, E Mail Alison@ Tracey Yeates Supervisor 271912025 Butterflles Pre- School - Re Istered Charlt l 171056 To conflrm that I have made an independent examlnation of the Pre-school accounts for the year ended 31 st December 2024 I have found that these accounts are a fair repre5entatlon of their financial situation. Thank you With Kind Regards Alison Berry