2022-08-31-accounts

Annual Trustees Report for The Marie Sklodowska- Curie Polish Saturday School Wimbledon Putney

Registration number 1179554

Governing Document: CIO Association

Registered 14 August 2018

Report of Trustees for the year ending 31.08.2022

The Governors of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Polish Saturday School WimbledonPutney present their annual report for the year ended 31.08.2022

Our Aims

The School operates since 1960, teaching Polish language, history, culture and heritage to children between the ages of 3 and 18. On 18th August 2018 the School was formally registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales as Association.

We are members of the Polish Educational Society (registered in England and Wales - charity no 1159980) which supports Polish education in Great Britain. In February 2019 we received confirmation of registration with HMRC, which allows us to receive Gift Aid donations, with effect from 14.08.2018. We are a relatively new charity; however, we have a 60-year history as a supplementary school.

We promote and teach Polish language, culture, and traditions through a specially designed curriculum for Polish schools outside of Poland, preparing our students to take GCSE and A level exams under the AQA examination board.

Through cultural events and activities, we broaden the students’ knowledge of Poland and its heritage. We aim to create an ethos of being a community in which all students and their families feel at home, respected and involved. Many extracurricular activities are designed to bring Polish history, culture and heritage closer to our students so that, when they leave our school, they feel truly enriched.

Our objectives

Our objectives for the year 2021-22 were to reflect our academic aims in our work, as well as our ethos as stated by objectives of a charitable organisation.

We aimed to:

• Offer a broad, relevant curriculum, helping our students to learn Polish language, history and traditions alongside achieving excellent end of year, GCSE and A level results

• Broaden the curriculum through well planned and prepared extracurricular activities

• • Form good relationships and play a part in our community through organising charitable events aimed to help both local and national charities

• Provide bursaries to families with financial difficulties to help with the payment of school fees  Provide relevant training for our staff

• Strengthen our school community through events aimed to involve our parents in the life of our school, while fundraising for its needs.

• The Summer Fair and cake sales are some examples of these events, and they very strongly rely on parental involvement and turn out.

Pupil numbers

During 2020-21 our school had 589 pupils in 26 classes (forms).

The number of pupils per class varied between 20-24 (excluding reception where it was 31). All our forms were full. In 2021-22 we observed a record number of students in the examination classes:

• GSCE year 1 – 43 students

• GSCE year 2 – 39 students

• A1 – 44 students

• A2 – 47 students

We believe that the change of examination rules during the pandemic (where a grade was based on the classroom work rather than the final exams) had a significant impact on the decision of many students to join a formal course.

There was several children on a waiting list. Unfortunately, due to restrictions posed by our premises and our aim to keep class sizes at the above level, we were not able to offer places to these candidates.

35 teachers and 10 teacher assistants were working in the school.

This included a history teacher and RE teachers.

Fees

Our fees in 2021-22 were as follows:

1st child £330 per academic year

2nd child £290 per academic year

3rd child £ 140 per academic year

4th and above child- exempt from fees

During 2021-22 we offered help in the form of bursaries to the amount of £785.

Finances

The accounts are presented to parents at the Annual General Meeting which normally takes place in November.

The budget for the next academic year is also presented and discussed giving the parents and carers a chance to have their voice on such matters.

The school’s main income comes from school fees (nearly £166,000). We also received support from Stowarzyszenie Wspolnota Polska (The Polish Community Association in Warsaw) to the value of £9,136.

The cake sales and school fairs organised by the PTA brought in £10,295 net funding. The main expenses of the School are teachers’ salaries and rent for using the premises of Ursuline High School in Wimbledon.

The School also provided school books for the students and paid for teachers training.

To emphasise the value we place on continuity for families, we offer discounts where parents have more than one child in our school. To attract and retain high quality staff we offer a discount scheme for children of those employed by the School.

The Governing Body aims to keep the accounts with a healthy surplus to provide additional funding in case of unexpected events such as the need to find new premises and redundancy payments if the school were to close down.

More detailed information on the accounts are available in the Accounts Report.

Academic achievements

During 2021-22 academic year:

Due to pandemic formal GSCE and A-level exams were cancelled. Instead, the teachers were asked to provide predicted grades that were used as the formal exam results.

Our students gained the following results:

A-levels

• A* - 16 students

• • A - 13 students

Therefore, our A*-A result was 100%.

GCSE

• “9” - 30 students

• • “8” - 3 students - “7” - 1 students - Unknown – 9 students

These are results we are immensely proud of.

Review of activities and achievements:

In the school year 2020-21 we were working under very strict Covid rules. We came back to the classrooms at the beginning of September however due to increased numbers of Covid infections, had to return to online teaching. The school was closed for face-to-face lessons from 9[th] January to 6[th] March 2021.We returned again to face to face teaching on 13[th] March – again under strict Covid regulations (i.e. face masks, distancing etc.)

Due to pandemic majority of our annual fundraising events could not take place. However, the new circumstances opened up new opportunities – our students took part in a number of competitions:

• XIII edition of “Byc Polakiem” - a competition organised under patronage of Chancellery of the Prime Misnister of Poland. One of our student was awarded the highest prize

• Qualifying event for the XI edition of the Polish Poetry Festival “Wierszowisko”

• The final of the festival took place on 26/06/2022. Our students achived a second place in 7-9 yrs old category and 3[rd] place in a group category

We have very close links with the Polish Scouts association. Many of our pupils are able to join the Polish Rainbows/Brownies and Scouts. Their activities normally take place immediately after school hours. We invite the leaders at the beginning of the school year to encourage new members to join.

Close links with the Polish Scout movement in the UK reflects our ethos of cultivating our Polish heritage and Christian values.

We are also supported and have close links with St John Evangelist Polish Catholic Church in Putney. The priests and nuns are employed by our School to provide RE lessons for our pupils, which form part of the curriculum.

The School year starts and ends with a Holy Mass dedicated to our school community.

The School Structure

The school is led by the Head Teacher, Mrs Maja Brodzinska.

The Head Teacher led a team of 36 teachers and 11 teaching assistants in the academic year 2021-22.

The Governing Body consisted of 11 trustees, among them was the Head Teacher.

The names of the Trustees in 2021-22 were as follows:

Maria Brodzinska- Head Teacher

Dorota Lewis - Chair of Governors

Lucyna Rogowska – secretary

Karolina Cisek-Ndlovu

Grzegorz Dragula

Monika Gasiecka

Radoslaw Gotkiewicz

Katarzyna Stelmach – Postigo

Dorota Trawinska

Monika Zasadzinska

Dorota Zborowska - Wawrzyniak

Apart from the teaching staff the school also employs an administrator and 3 duty officers. All but one trustee (Head Teacher) are volunteers. We give employment opportunities to our A level graduates, who are able to work as teacher’s assistants in our lower school. This is on a yearly contract basis.

The Marie Sklodowska- Curie Polish Saturday School rents its premises from Ursuline High School in Wimbledon, London.

Lessons take place during Saturday mornings, 35 Saturdays a year.

The School year is divided into 3 terms. The lessons take place between 9:30-12:30.

During breaks parents on duty help to provide a secure environment for the pupils. All staff and volunteers of the School have undergone DBS checks.

Charitable actions

Our school prides itself in offering support to charitable organisations. During 2021-22 our school organised the following charitable events:

• Mc Millan Coffee morning

• Santa’s visit (Mikolajki)

• Christmas Jumper Day

• Christmas Fair

• Easter Fair

• Children’s day

• Summer Fair

• Donuts sales

The events raised net of £10,199

Governors’ recruitment

The Governors/Trustees are elected by the parents during the Annual General Meeting or by the Body of Governors if a vacancy arises later in the academic year. The Governors/Trustees hold their position for 3 years and can be re-elected if they wish to stand again, in accordance with our Constitution. The positions are advertised to the School community and any parent can apply. Each applicant has to be endorsed by 2 current Governors/Trustees. The Governors work for the school wholly on a voluntary basis. The Headteacher, appointed by the Body of Governors is remunerated.

Plans and aspirations

Our school will celebrate 65[th] anniversary in 2025. Our plan for 2022/23 is to begin preparation for the celebration as well as to continue with the charitable events we have organised this year. Since they were such a great success, we would like them to become a fixed components of our school event calendar.

Professional advisors:

Bank : : Lloyds Bank:

Sort code 30-94-77.

Account 04231031

Insurers : Ansvar DA through Keegan & Pennykid Insurance Brokers

Auditors: Olena Zakrzewska

Contact details:

Address:

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Polish Saturday School Wimbledon-Putney

Ursuline High School Crescent Road Wimbledon SW20 8HA

Website www.polishschoolputney.com