St James Church Centre Kingfisher Drive Woodley Reading RG5 3LH 07305 399689
https://www.st-james-preschool.com/
TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT FOR 10/05/2019 TO 31/08/2020
ST JAMES CHURCH PRE-SCHOOL CIO – Reg # 1183349
St. James Church Pre-School has been operating for over 40 years. Originally as a playgroup and more recently as an OFSTED registered Early Years Setting. During this time, it has operated as part of the organisation of St. James Church (Registered Charity # 1128770 - THE PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PARISH OF SOUTHLAKE ST JAMES).
During 2019, the process was started to separate the preschool from the organisation of the church and set it up as a new registered charity. The plan was for the operational side to begin from 01[st] August 2019.
Whilst the process of registering the charity itself was relatively straightforward, the legal process involved to segregate the operational side of the preschool from the church was more time consuming and complicated. The transfer documents were all ready for completion by the end of 2019. In the meantime, we had started the process of a new registration with OFSTED. Although the preschool was already OFSTED registered, we needed a new registration as the preschool would be a new legal entity as a CIO. This was also a very time-consuming process and we struggled with our communication with OFSTED. Then COVID happened and the application was just stalled.
We then had a situation where all the original trustees no longer had children in preschool, so we needed to find new trustees. OFSTED had also put a stop to all inspections which is a requirement of a new registration.
As the operational side of preschool remains part of the church, there will be no accounts to file for this period. The financials are still reported within the accounts of the church under the charity # 1128770.
New trustees have now been appointed and DBS status obtained. During the following months the staff and preschool just concentrated on getting through the COVID pandemic. We were able to remain operational within the Government guidelines and provided a safe environment for the children of our community during this time. We have now re-started the registration process with OFSTED.
Nicola Tivey
Chairperson