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2025-08-31-accounts

ST CHAD'S PRESCHOOL ANNUAL ACCOUNTS - Main Account

INCOME

Coniston Early Years Centre Accounts 2024-2025 EXPENDITURE

Balance brought fwd from Aug 2024

£ 267,273.76

Fees £ 39,971.19 Telephone £ 1,760.83
Early Years Funding £ 236,075.82 Wages £ 256,835.68
Fund Raising £ 721.55 Catering £ 225.82
Uniform Sales £ - Rent £ 8,750.00
Catering £ - Equipment £ 7,503.83
Other £ 5,386.00 Admin £ 9,448.79
£ - Training £ 1,009.00
Other £ 14,140.45
Transfer to Resource £ 18,307.17
Total £ 282,154.56 VAT £ -
Total £ 317,981.57
Total Income ytd £282,154.56 Total Expenditure ytd £317,981.57
0

£231,446.75

Bank @ 31.8.25 £231,446.75

Balance carried fwd

Signed Date

Chair Report

I would like to start by saying a huge thank you to Sarah and the staff here who work tirelessly to provide truly exceptional childcare for our children.

I know personally I find it very hard to leave my children but I know when they come here they are well provided for and encounter such a wide range of enriching activities that really prepare them for EYFS and all their future education.

But it’s a big job and these individuals do it because they have a passion to see these little people thrive so I wanted to thank them all for their hard work.

Just to give you a brief history of the current team - Kimberly and I became treasurer and chair respectively in Feb 2023. And we were thrilled to welcome Lauren to the team in Feb 2024. We meet most months, mainly on teams as we all have small children and find it hard to get out of an evening but find this works well for us and our families.

We time our meetings in with the monthly staff meetings so that any relevant updates can be shared and work coherently with the team in regards reviewing policies etc.

As well as reviewing policies and generally trying to be a support to Sarah we support with staff reviews. This was - we believe - a great success last year and as a result we have seen a few changes in staff roles / structure to enable everyone to work to their strengths and feel fully engaged / fulfilled in their roles and meet the needs of work / life balance.

We are currently coming in over the next month to complete this years reviews. And I know for one I am really looking forward to the opportunity to spend some time with the excellent staff here. Encouraging them and adding weight to the process by supporting Sarah in the reviews.

Policy and staff reviews were our main focus for 2024 and will continue to be in 2025 - although we are also keen to actively support Sarah to release her time a little to protect her well-being and allow time for sustainable forward planning. Although not clear what that may look like at present.

I will just take chance to remind parents that we do have an email and are contactable through that or through the preschool should they wish to speak with us.

Lastly I would just like to extend a welcome to anyone you who may wish to join the team as a trustee. We would love to have more members and would really value your input. If anyone is interested please talk to us at the end.

Jo Phillips

Chair of Trustees

Managers report for AGM 11.2.25

I would like to start by saying a huge thank you to Jo, Lauren and Kim for all their support over the past year it is truly appreciated.

I would also like to thank the staff team for all their hard work and commitment as always, without the thought and care they put into each day the huge variety of activities and experiences we offer the children would not be possible.

We have had such a very busy year so far I’m not sure where to start. So I guess the best thing to do is to start at the beginning!

The Nice Hub – this came about as a result of a series of training that Jo and I attended around this time last year. We visited three settings that have a high level of children with additional needs and like ourselves they were struggling to manage the children’s needs and so needed to find another way of working. So the idea of the Nice Hub was born. Jo and I spent the summer planning the change, working out how we would split our space and what the Nice Hub would need to meet the needs of the children. Following a complete redecoration of the pre school over the Summer holiday Jo and I came in and spent a couple of days setting up the new space. Jo spoke to the parents of the children who we thought would benefit from the smaller, quieter environment with a higher ratio of adults to children, thankfully they were amazing and came on board giving us their full support. September to December was a learning curve for Jo and her staff who at that time were Leanne, Shaylee and Chanel as they worked out the best timetable for the day to give the children structure and support. All with the view to helping the children to reach the point where they are ready to either move to the main provision or to be ready for school. It has been an exciting time and I am so pleased to be able to share with you that the Nice Hub children are really thriving so much so that some of them are now spending more time in the main provision.

Our Main Provision – following the creation of the Nice Hub my thoughts then turned to the rest of the pre school and how best to organise it, again ensuring that the children’s needs are met. Again taking inspiration from the training I had attended with Jo I decided to split the remaining provision into three smaller hub groups. You will know these as the Treehouse Hub, Home Hub and Discovery Hub. I am so pleased to be able to say these small hubs have worked really well. It has meant new children are settling into a small group with lots of adult support. These hubs have continued to develop and thrive under the guidance of the staff in each of them.

What else have we done since the start of this academic year? We have organised lots of trips with children visiting The Bristol Zoo Project, Lawrence Weston Farm, The Redgrave Theatre and the Sensory Space at the Imperial Sports Ground to name a few, there have also been many smaller more local trips to the shops, hairdressers and local duck pond. The children love getting out and about and are a real credit to you as no matter where we go we always receive positive comments about their behaviour.

Steph has worked amazingly hard organising the cooking groups and the children are really loving making delicious goodies to take home and share with their family. This will continue throughout the year with every child having the opportunity to cook on a regular basis.

Very recently each Hub has started to send home story bags so that you and your child can spend time together enjoying the book their hub is exploring this term. We hope you are enjoying this and we look forward to receiving photos and feedback from the story bags.

I have had the honour of working with Lucy running Forest School sessions and the children love going to the Forest cooking mallows, popcorn and enjoying hot chocolate and the freedom they can enjoy in this area of our provision is amazing. The growth in their confidence we see each week never ceases to amaze me and even the quietest of our children find their voice in this area it really is a pleasure to be part of this experience for your children.

What Next – we have so much more planned for the remainder of this school year and beyond! We will be continuing to develop the Forest School area in conjunction with the school. Lucy will be completing her Level 3 Forest School training and I can only see this making the Forest School sessions even better than they are now.

Rebecca is currently completing Helicopter Stories training – this is a programme aimed at promoting children’s language and confidence in story telling – Rebecca will be sending out more information on this soon.

We have achieved Portage Accreditation and are one of the first pre schools in the South Gloucestershire Area to do so, several staff are now Portage trained which has helped us to understand how to support all children to achieve their full potential.

Makaton Friendly programme – we are currently in the process of working towards achieving Makaton Friendly status for the setting and recently Chanel has taken the lead on this and I am sure you will be hearing a lot more from her on this over the coming weeks. Every single member of staff has been trained to Level 2 in Makaton and we are working on embedding it into our practice.

Bristol Standard – this is a highly renowned Quality Assurance programme which we achieved for 9 years in a row some years ago, sadly South Gloucestershire stopped running the programme for a time but have recently relaunched it in conjunction with Bristol Council and we are back on the road to achieving the standard again. Cheryl will be leading on this and we hope that you will see the development and improvement of our practice as we move through our Bristol Standard Journey.

Five to Thrive – you may remember we had an inset day in January and as part of this we received training on the Five to Thrive programme. This is aimed at promoting the well being of everyone we have contact with so the children, parents, staff and all visitors to our setting should see this in our practice and interactions with them. We really want to focus on ensuring our families in particular benefit from this approach so please watch out for more details in the coming weeks.

I look forward to sharing more on all of these developments as the year progresses.

Treasurers Statement for AGM held 11.2.25

Income to date (Sept 24 – Jan 25) £113,547.71 Expenditure to date (Sept 24 – Jan £133,198.38 25 Balance in Bank as of 31.1.25 £247,623.09

Whilst we maintain a healthy bank balance it must be noted that with the forthcoming increase to the National Living Wage and also the rise in National Insurance payments in April 2025 this figure is likely to be much less moving forward.

The minutes of meeting of the Coniston Early Years Centre AGM hosted by the

Trustees held on Tuesday 11[th] February 2025 7pm

Present: Mrs Sarah Trussell – Pre-School Manager (ST), Mrs Kimberly Wathen –

Treasurer (KW), Mrs Joanna Phillips – Chair (JP) and Lauren Lansdown (LL)

Parents attended: Samantha Draper (SD), Telma Freitas (TF), Chloe Cross (CC),

Rosemary Aina (RA), Daniel Hunt (DH), Becky Bentley (BB), Emma England (EE) Apologies: Michal Plesniak (MP)

Agenda:

Agenda Item Follow up task
Welcome, why we are here and clarifying role.
JP, LL and KW welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked all for coming.
JP shared why the pre-school needed trustees and gave a brief overview of the trustee role and responsibilities. We talked a
little about fundraising and how this had not been part of our role to date but may need to consider this in the future as
running costs escalate.
JP introduced herself and confrmed her role as chair of trustees, KW introduced herself and explained that she was
Treasurer and LL shared that she was a trustee and enjoyed being part of the team.
Manager Report
ST shared her managers report – full report attached.
ST covered the change in structure to introduce the nice hub in September. She shared that this was to address the evident
need and enable them to better support all the children in their care.
ST continued to share on all the training and standards the sta are looking at such as the Bristol standard, helicopter stories
and Makaton.
Chairs Report
JP shared the chair report – full report attached.
JP started by thanking ST and the team for all their hard work looking after the children. Gave a little overview of how and
when the trustees joined, the teams focus for the previous year and for the coming year.

Treasurers Report

KW shared that the pre-school bank balance is currently healthy but that the imminent increase in NLW and business NI contributions was going to have a significant impact.

Questions, feedback and suggestions – anything we can improve

LL lead this section sharing on some slides from the presentation that highlighted the uniqueness of each of our children and how the pre-school worked so hard to nurture this. LL then opened up for questions and feedback.

SD asked if the pre-school could share the songs, they sing with the children so that we can carry on using them at home as the children ask for them.

ST to send list of children’s favourite

TF asked for more advice on what works well for the children and how to support their behaviour and wellbeing at home.

Following on from TF question EE and some others present asked if there could be more of a focus to the coffee afternoons or some other type of drop in session to help parents with various aspects of children’s development. ST said this tied in nicely with the Five to Thrive approach that the setting have recently signed up for with the local authority and that there would be more information coming out to parents about this in the near future. A lovely discussion followed in which ST shared on each parents child and how they get on while at the pre school. It was evident that this was well received by the parents.

songs to parents

ST and whole sta team to promote Five to Thrive approach within every aspect of their work with families and also to organise focussed events for parents based on principles of Five to Thrive

Policies 5.1 – 5.3 and agree next policies for review To keep to time we did not review the policies as part of the meeting but explained what and why we review the policies. We agreed to review policy 7.1 at the next meeting. ST stated that she would share the next policies for review with the parents present to seek their feedback. ST to send out policies 7.1 Re-elect trustees JP and LL stood as co-chair for the coming year. JP was voted in by ST and seconded by CC LL was voted in as Co Chair by JP and seconded by SD KW was voted by BB and seconded by TF JP invited anyone present to join the team highlighting the need for a secretary to take minutes of meetings. No one volunteered at present but EE is considering joining. JP promised to send minutes template for her to see what is needed. JP to send EE minutes from last meeting.

Thanks and Close

JP thanked everyone for coming and closed the meeting at around 8:10pm