Number Champions ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS For the year ended 31 July 2022
CONTENTS
Chair’s Report ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Trustees’ Report .............................................................................................................................................................................................4 What we do ................................................................................................................................................................................................4 How we have helped children.....................................................................................................................................................5 How we work..............................................................................................................................................................................................7 How we support ourselves financially .................................................................................................................................8 Other activities .........................................................................................................................................................................................9 Strategy .........................................................................................................................................................................................................9 Governance ..............................................................................................................................................................................................10 Public benefit statement .................................................................................................................................................................11 Disadvantage and diversity ....................................................................................................................................................... 12 Risk management .............................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Trustees’ responsibility statement ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Accounts for the year ended 31 July 2022 ............................................................................................................................13 Independent Examiner’s report ................................................................................................................................................13 Statement of financial activities ............................................................................................................................................. 14 Notes to the financial statements ......................................................................................................................................... 15
Quotes about children are from teachers’ comments on the impact of our intervention this year. They have been anonymised, giving only the name of the borough in which the school is located.
“D– enjoyed the sessions. His maths has come on really well this year and he is now meeting age-expectations. Thank you for working with him.”
Islington
Number Champions Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31 July 2022
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CHAIR’S REPORT
We are delighted to be back on track after the worst of the pandemic. This has been made possible through the commitment of our volunteers and the trust which schools have placed in us. We have partnered with 25 schools this year, compared with eight last year, and our volunteers have supported over 240 children.
Teachers’ evaluations show that there has been a really beneficial impact on children’s educational development, with considerable progress in actual maths skills, a more positive attitude towards learning maths, and greater self-confidence. Comments from teachers quoted in this report give a flavour of the impact on individual children.
An exciting development this year is that academics at Queen Mary University have chosen to collaborate with Number Champions and are applying for a grant to evaluate the impact of our programme. Such an independent evaluation is a core strategic goal for us.
We have succeeded in our objective for this year in raising funds to support our first (part time) paid employee. We filled the role temporarily in March and April, and we have now appointed a new Head of Operations, Lorraine Gerrard, who will start in September. Lorraine has volunteered with Number Champions for two years and has been Chair of Governors of a large primary school, and we are delighted that she is bringing her passion and experience to the role.
Until now, we have been entirely volunteer-led. The appointment of the Head of Operations gives us the opportunity to focus in the coming year on all aspects of our organisation and communication, so as to provide an even stronger base for future growth without compromising quality. Our vision remains the creation of a sustained improvement at a national level in primary school children’s educational chances.
Bernard Manson
Bernard Manson , Chair
“C– really struggles with confidence across all areas of the curriculum. Since starting Number Champions, she has become much more confident in working with partners and independently.”
Brent
“L– has enjoyed his sessions, regularly asking me when the next one is going to be, as well as noticing if they haven’t happened/the time has changed. He particularly enjoys playing maths games, which have increased his engagement and interest in maths. He scored higher than expected in his recent SATs exams.”
Westminster
Number Champions Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31 July 2022
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TRUSTEES’ REPORT
What we do
The charity was established in July 2018 to help transform the lives of primary school children who struggle with numeracy or lack confidence in maths.
Our trained volunteers use games and other creative activities in one-to-one sessions with Year 2 and 3 children (aged six to eight) to enable them to overcome the ‘maths barrier’.
Early intervention can put these young children back on track to achieve their full life potential, in a world where some fluency with maths and numbers is an essential building block.
Each session is 20 to 30 minutes at least weekly for, in principle, the full school year. Sessions are in school time, but outside the classroom.
Former and current teachers, volunteering with us as ‘Mentors’, train and support these In-School Volunteers and have helped us to develop dedicated resources for them to use with the children. We also have a former head teacher as our Designated Safeguarding Lead.
The school decides which children need help. Although this is based solely on maths achievement, it is no surprise that nearly half of the children we work with are from disadvantaged backgrounds, as measured by Pupil Premium.
The much higher percentage of children with Pupil Premium in our cohort echoes research showing that disadvantaged children are over nine months behind in numeracy at the end of primary school and that this gap has widened during the pandemic - so our work is now even more vital.
“J– enjoys her Number Champions sessions and greatly benefits from the 1:1 support, as she struggles to maintain focus during maths lessons in a whole-class environment.”
Westminster
“Much more confident and engaged in maths lessons. Has a noticeable enjoyment for maths.”
Brent
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How we have helped children
Although Covid has been a presence during the year, we have been able to focus on our mission of helping children in state primary schools who are behind in maths. Our volunteers work with the ‘whole child’ to help them to grow in confidence and gain skills, and hence to improve their overall educational and life chances.
At the end of the school year, we asked teachers to evaluate the progress of the children our volunteers worked with. There were two questions in our survey:
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1 How has the child’s confidence in maths changed since taking part in Number Champions?
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2 How has the gap in mathematical attainment between the child and the rest of the class changed since taking part in Number Champions?
89% of children showed a measurable increase in confidence and 78% showed a measurable catch-up in attainment with the rest of the class.
The charts below show the percentages of each evaluation across our population of children. The survey also allowed an answer of ‘worse’ for each question, but no teacher answered this for any child.
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20.8% 34.2%
Very much better Notably better
10.8% Child’s 34.2%
The same change in A little better
confidence
6.7% 26.7%
Very much reduced Notably reduced
Child’s
21.6% attainment 45.0%
The same gap relative A little reduced
to peers
----- End of picture text -----
“F– has become very confident in maths. She is now more willing to engage and is not afraid of making mistakes as she takes an active approach to correct them. The extra support has been very useful.”
Enfield
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Separately, we carried out a pilot exercise on a subset of schools to investigate how children’s attitudes to maths learning changed over the year. This was based on a survey created by the Cambridge University ENRICH maths teaching project. It involved asking questions such as ‘How much do you like doing maths?’, with the child answering by choosing one out of a range of ‘smiley face’ down to ‘frowny face’. We scored the answers as 1 for a smiley face, 2 for a slightly smiley face, 3 for neutral, and so on.
The answers showed a small but consistent improvement over the year across the population of children, with the average score improving from 2.6 to 2.3. Interestingly, the biggest change was in the question ‘How useful is maths outside school?’ with a 0.5 improvement over the year.
These results are encouraging, and we will repeat this exercise next year incorporating improvements we have identified from the pilot.
“Q– made wonderful progress whilst participating in the Number Champions sessions. She was much more confident and able to use sentence stems and manipulatives appropriately. She was able to explain her thinking to the teacher, other adults and peers.”
Brent
“K–’s confidence with his maths has blossomed with the support of the volunteer this year… He is now noticeably more confident, volunteering answers frequently. This has also translated into his independent work, where he confidently cracks on with the questions. Thank you!”
Camden
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“The volunteer has been superb. She is really diligent. She has checked on what we are doing currently in class and made sure what she does with H– fits where possible. H– has looked forward to the sessions and it has certainly helped cement some key concepts in maths.”
Camden
How we work
We have had over 80 In-School Volunteers this year, working in 25 partner schools across eight London boroughs and supporting over 240 children.
Our three main types of volunteer are:
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In-School Volunteers – Trained to work in schools one-to-one with children to deliver our intervention
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Mentors – Experienced primary school teachers who provide training and educational support to the volunteers and who observe them working with the children and provide feedback
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Area Leaders – Who manage our relationship with schools and volunteers and provide administrative support, to ensure the smooth running of our programme.
Other volunteers support us in specific areas such as safeguarding, IT, and marketing to schools.
Eight Area Leaders and 15 Mentors supported the In-School Volunteers. We recruited one Mentor based outside London who worked remotely with the In-School Volunteers she supported. This provides a promising model for providing a larger number of Mentors in the future.
We have continued to refine our operating model as we have gained experience; we have improved the communication amongst our groups of volunteers and with our partner schools and we will continue to work on this in the coming year. Following two years of Covid we were able to reinstate our summer ‘thank you’ party for volunteers, and we look forward to expanding our social activities in future years.
Thank you to volunteers
The trustees thank all our many volunteers. We are totally reliant on your enthusiasm and commitment to achieve the aims of the charity.
By generously giving of your time and skills, whether in school or behind the scenes, you have enabled Number Champions to help over 240 children this year.
Number Champions Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31 July 2022
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How we support ourselves financially
The bulk of our activities, and in particular our delivery of support in schools, will always be provided by volunteers. However, in order for the charity to be sustainable, we need to be able to recruit paid staff to carry out the management and administrative work currently being done by the trustees. This will require us raising about three quarters of our funding from donations, with the balance coming from fees paid by our partner schools.
Because of the huge increase in need from charities during the pandemic, fundraising was particularly difficult over the last two years. We are delighted that this year we have nevertheless been able to raise funding from a wide range of sources to enable us to recruit our first (part time) employee. As described in the Chair’s Report, we filled the role temporarily in March and April, and we have now appointed a new Head of Operations to start in September.
Thank you to donors
We are grateful to the growing number of organisations and individuals whose generous support has enabled us to build our capacity to operate and to help children.
We have received donations this year from the following trusts and charities:
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THE HORNERS
CHARITY FUND
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We have also received donations from individuals including:
Professor Scott Aaronson
Sir Simon and Lady (Shireen) Fraser
Sir David Spiegelhalter
“Going through any errors/misconceptions in maths books has been really beneficial for children. M– particularly benefited from the opportunity to discuss different strategies and methods... M– has loved working with the volunteer this year and his arithmetic skills have noticeably improved.”
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Camden
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Other activities in the year
Upgrade to information infrastructure – We are pleased to report that we met the target we gave in last year’s Annual Report and implemented a structured multi-user database on the ‘cloud’ in January 2022. This is supported by documented process charts for our main operational activities. We have been using the cloud-based infrastructure successfully for six months, and we believe it will provide a robust administrative system for our needs for at least the next four years.
We are grateful to Stuart Clifton, Harsha Aswani, and Jane Nelthorpe who have provided pro bono expert support for this project and are continuing to assist the charity.
Academic evaluation – Obtaining independent evaluation of the impact of our intervention on children is one of our strategic goals. This year we have been in discussion with academics at Queen Mary University about their running an evaluation project and they have agreed to seek funding for this to begin in academic year 2023-24.
New illustrator – It has always been our intention to move away from using stock photos of children. We are delighted that we have now commissioned Hannah Robinson, a talented young artist, to produce the drawings which you can see throughout this report. We look forward to updating our website later in the year to use Hannah’s images.
Thank you for legal support
We thank Buvini Kularatne and Paige Izquierdo of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP for pro bono legal support. This will enable us to simplify our operational processes around making contracts, reduce legal risk, and remove extra work and delays.
Strategy
Our strategy continues to be to grow rapidly in order to support more children, to make the charity sustainable , and ultimately to be able to exert influence on education beyond our partner schools.
We will widen our funding sources ; this will enable us to grow our organisation to increase the number of children we support.
Our geographical strategy is to expand across London for at least the next three years , before starting to build a presence nationally. In school year 2022-23, we will be active in 12 London boroughs both north and south of the Thames, and we plan to expand this range steadily in the coming years.
In the medium term we are continuing to rely on an end-of-year evaluation from teachers as our main evidence of the positive impact of our programme. It is a strategic goal of the charity to develop other evaluation techniques and eventually to have a rigorous independent statistical review . Our partnership with Queen Mary University is an important first step on this path.
“J–’s grasp of maths fluency, times tables and number bonds has improved which has enabled her to access the Year 3 learning more successfully. J– has really enjoyed her weekly sessions with the volunteer.”
Islington
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Governance
Under our constitution, a board of trustees, meeting about every six weeks, runs the charity. (Brief trustee biographies are published on our website.) In addition to the board’s strategic role, at each meeting it reviews the operations of the charity and, as necessary, initiates corrective action. The board itself is responsible for recruitment of trustees, using a wide search to find candidates who bring independence and necessary skills.
Trustees who served during the year
Bernard Manson
Elected 15 July 2018 Re-elected from 10 June 2020 to 10 June 2024
Lisa Baglin
Elected 10 February 2019 Re-elected from 12 January 2020 to 10 June 2025
Ron Finlay
Elected from 12 May 2019 to 12 May 2023
Sarah Manson
Elected 15 July 2018 Re-elected from 10 June 2020 to 10 June 2024
Gelena Rozenberg
Elected from 10 February 2019 to 10 August 2022
Stephanie Sanchez Kuong
Elected from 10 February 2019 to 10 February 2023
No trustee received any remuneration or any repayment of expenses in the year.
“P– particularly benefited from the opportunity to go over word problems that she found difficult during lessons. She … still refers to the sessions with fondness! She was always very excited to see the volunteer!”
Camden
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Public benefit statement
Our main objective is ‘assisting primary school children in acquiring and consolidating basic mathematical skills’. Since our inception, we have focused our operational objective on ‘supporting children in state primary schools in Years 2 and 3 (six to eight-year-olds) who have fallen behind in maths’.
During the year, we worked with over 240 children in Years 2 and 3 in 25 state schools in North and Central London. The children were selected by their class teachers as having fallen behind the level of attainment in mathematics specified for their age under the National Curriculum.
The benefit to the children we worked with was an improvement in their confidence and skills in maths, as evidenced by independent evaluation by their class teacher. We and the schools believe that this will also improve their chances of successfully acquiring appropriate maths skills in future, and that it should have a positive impact on their overall educational and life chances.
The trustees have paid due attention to the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit when reviewing the charity’s objectives and activities.
“E– has specifically talked about how much fun she finds the sessions and she didn’t know maths could be fun!”
Enfield
“G– is more positive about maths, engages better during lessons and participates with greater enthusiasm. She is able to undertake tasks independently and has begun to select the appropriate manipulatives to help her.”
Brent
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Disadvantage and diversity
We use ‘Pupil Premium’ as a readily accessible measure to identify disadvantaged children. The average Pupil Premium percentage across our partner schools was 30%, compared with 25% across all London state-funded primary schools.
We do not hold data on individual children, but this year we asked schools to identify how many of their children with whom our volunteers worked were on Pupil Premium. Averaging results across our partner schools shows that 49% of the children we work with are on Pupil Premium.
The ethnic mix across our partner schools broadly matches the average mix across all London schools. When we reach sufficient scale, we will obtain statistics of the actual children we support rather than assuming that they match their schools’.
We currently do not track the mix of ethnicity and other attributes across our volunteers, but we do know that a wide range of ethnicities and nationalities are represented. Where we advertise a trustee role, we have started to use specialist websites which encourage people from ethnic minorities to become trustees.
Risk management
The trustees have given consideration to the major risks to which the charity is exposed and satisfied themselves that systems or procedures are established in order to manage those risks.
Under our Risk Management Policy Framework, our overall goal is to take steps to give reasonable assurance that it can achieve our operational and strategic goals, even if adverse events occur.
The Framework creates a rolling process whereby the trustees establish and review a risk register of potential events which could impact delivery of the charity’s objectives. For each risk, they assess and classify it according to its severity and likelihood and put in place appropriate controls. This process is reviewed annually by the board to ensure that it is working effectively. There is also an item on risk at each board meeting to review any risk identified as having emerged or altered due to changing circumstances.
Trustees’ responsibility statement
The trustees are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations. The trustees have elected to prepare the financial statements on a receipts and payments basis.
Number Champions Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31 July 2022
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ACCOUNTS
Independent Examiner’s report
Independent Examiner’s report to the trustees of Number Champions
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Number Champions (the Trust) for the year ended 31 July 2022.
Responsibilities and basis of report
As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’). I report in respect of my examination of the Charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 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 Examiner’s statement
Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the Trust are not required to be audited and are eligible for independent examination, I have completed my examination. My examination cannot give the same level of assurance as an audit. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
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Accounting records were not kept in respect of the Trust as required by section 130 of the Act; or
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The accounts do not accord with those records.
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.
Peter Hill
Peter Hill FCIS 73 Priors Hill Wroughton SN4 0RL 22 September 2022
Number Champions Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31 July 2022
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Statement of financial activities for the year ended 31 July 2022
Statement of Income and Expenditure for the Year Ended 31 July 2022
| Notes | 2021-22 | 2020-21 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | ||
| Total incoming resources | 1, 2, 3,4 | 23,251 | 7,176 |
| Resources expended on: | |||
| Staf | 5, 6 | 3,669 | 0 |
| Website development and running | 1,381 | 597 | |
| Teaching materials | 556 | 1,012 | |
| Other charitable activities | 3,011 | 1,227 | |
| Total expenditure | 8,617 | 2,836 | |
| Net incoming resources | 14,634 | 4,340 | |
| Movement in funds | 14,634 | 4,340 | |
| Funds carried forward | 4, 7 | 26,910 | 12,276 |
Statement of Assets and Liabilities at 31 July 2022
| Notes | 2021-22 | 2020-21 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | ||
| Current Assets | |||
| Cash at bank | 26,910 | 12,276 | |
| Liabilities | |||
| Creditors | 0 | 0 | |
| Net Current Assets | 26,910 | 12,276 |
The notes on pages 15 to 17 form part of these financial statements.
These financial statements together with the Trustees’ Report on pages 3 to 12 are authorised for issue on 22 September 2022 by the board of trustees, and signed on their behalf.
Bernard Manson
Bernard Manson , Chair
Number Champions Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31 July 2022
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Notes to the financial statements for the year ended 31 July 2022
1. Accounting policies
a) Basis of accounting
The accounts are prepared on a receipts and payments basis, in accordance with applicable accounting standards and law. This option is available to the charity as it is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) with income less than £250,000.
The income of the charity is under £25,000, and there is therefore no legal requirement for the charity to have an independent examination of the accounts or an audit. However, the board of trustees has elected to have an independent examination.
Number Champions meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102: ‘An entity whose primary objective is to provide goods or services for the general public, community or social benefit and where any equity is provided with a view to supporting the entity’s primary objectives rather than with a view to providing a financial return to equity providers, shareholders or members.’
b) Going concern basis
The trustees have ascertained that the charity’s current cash balance together with its lowest projection for income are adequate to pay all its budgeted expenses to 31 July 2023, and they are therefore of the view that the charity is a going concern.
c) Financial instruments
The charity has no financial instruments.
d) VAT
The charity is not registered for VAT, and it records VAT on expenditure as an expense.
e) Restricted funds
Where donations are restricted to specific purposes, there are controls in place to ensure that the funds are used only for these purposes. The amount and nature of each class of restricted funds brought forward, received and used in this year, and carried forward at year end are reported in these accounts.
g) Legal Status
Number Champions is a CIO whose registered address Is 6 Totnes Walk, London, N2 0AD.
“S– has improved his basic number skills since working with his mentor. He has developed strategies for solving number problems and is more secure with maths fluency, number bonds and knowledge of times tables. His engagement and confidence during maths lessons has improved throughout the year. The volunteer has been extremely helpful and S– has really enjoyed his weekly maths sessions.”
Islington
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2. Income
Of the income of £23,251, £6,760 is fees from schools and £16,491 is from donations.
3. Expenditure on raising income
There was £216 expenditure on raising income.
4. Restricted funds
No restricted funds were carried forward at July 2021. Certain donations given in the current financial year were restricted (i) to be used to support the employment of a Head of Operations but only for the pro-rata expense in certain boroughs and (ii) for all costs of expansion but only for pro-rata expense in a different set of boroughs. Restricted donations are from The Portal Trust and John Lyon’s Charity.
These restricted funds and their usage (with all figures £) were:
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Category Head of Operations All expansion in Total
in certain boroughs certain boroughs
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| Category | Head of Operations in certain boroughs |
All expansion in certain boroughs |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brought forward | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Income in year | 5,000 | 6,500 | 11,500 |
| Expenditure in year | 1,195 | 3,792 | 4,987 |
| Carried forward | 3,805 | 2,708 | 6,513 |
The total restricted funds carried forward were thus £6,513 out of total reserves of £26,910.
5. Staff
The charity had one part-time employee for part of the year. The average full-time equivalent number of employees for the year was 0.1. No employee earned £60,000 or over.
6. Staff pensions
The charity contributes to a defined contribution pension scheme for its staff in proportion to gross pay. There is no defined benefits scheme for any present or past staff.
“R– has benefitted from Number Champions both with her maths and socially. She has really valued the 1-1 adult time she’s been having with the volunteer and the quiet, focused support has meant that R– has had time to solidify her learning from the week, as well as occasionally getting a heads-up about what’s to come next week! Thank you!”
Camden
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7. Reserves policy
The charity seeks to hold reserves of between 50% and 100% of the costs budgeted for the following financial year. This is to give resilience against future short-term fluctuations in income, so as to enable the charity to plan on a rolling twelve-month basis for continuance of employment of staff and for continued growth.
Reserves at 31 July 2022 are within this range. If, as planned, we had employed a Head of Operations continuously from February to 31 July, reserves would have been about £5,600 lower, but they would still have been in the target range.
8. Payments to trustees
There were no payments or other benefits to trustees or connected persons.
9. Payment to the Independent Examiner
The Independent Examiner acted pro bono and no fee was paid.
10.Guarantees and charges
As required by the Charities Incorporated Organisations (General) Regulations 2012, this note states that the CIO has given no guarantees and has no outstanding debt secured by any charge.
“Number Champions has been a fantastic confidence boost for A–. Whereas at the beginning of the year she would get very anxious about her maths work and required adult support, she now confidently tackles questions independently, finding the resources she knows can support her with her learning. Thank you!”
Camden
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“The volunteer has been absolutely great with B–. B–’s confidence in maths has grown immensely and she really enjoyed all the sessions. The volunteer made the sessions fun for the kids and they wanted to keep on going. B– has passed her SATs in maths and is now at the expected level of a Year 2 child.”
Islington
www.numberchampions.org.uk @NumberChampions
Number Champions Charitable Incorporated Organisation[•] Registered Charity No. 1180340 (England and Wales) Registered address: 6 Totnes Walk, London N2 0AD
© Number Champions 2022
Illustrations were commissioned by Number Champions and are © Hannah Robinson 2022. The artist hereby asserts her moral right to be identified as the creator of the Illustrations. Report design: 1st Impression Creative Ltd • www.1st-impression.org