Dr Frost Learning Annual Report
Period to March 31[st] 2022
Charity Details
Charity Name: Dr Frost Learning (formerly DFM Learning) Other Names Used: Dr Frost Maths Registration Number: 1194954 Principal Address: c/o Tiffin School, Queen Elizabeth Road, Kingston upon Thames, KT2 6RL
Trustees: Alastair Ingall (Chair) Archana Sarma Ken Batty Steve Woodford
Objectives and Activities
Dr Frost Learning has charitable objects which are states in the governing document as “to advance the education of the public in maths and other national curriculum subjects through the provision of on-line teaching and learning resources and to provide training and support on such resources to teaching staff.”
Dr Frost Learning was registered with the Charities Commission for England and Wales on 25[th] June 2021 as ‘DFM Learning’ and subsequently it changed its name to ‘Dr Frost Learning’ and amended its details with the Charity Commission on 24[th] August 2021.
The main activities of the charity are to:
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Provide high quality educational resources, broadly for the teaching of mathematics, for all individuals and institutions regardless of income, centred around the core philosophy that education is a fundamental right of all and central to addressing social inequality on a global level.
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Enable students to learn independently, with independent practice of questions supplemented with pedagogical support through the provision of teaching videos and appropriate explanations.
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To provide high quality downloadable teaching materials for educators, including but not limited to slides, worksheets and videos.
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Enable educators to set and monitor online educational tasks, through a combination of curated or automatically chosen/generated collections of questions.
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Develop innovative associated technologies that engage and inspire learners and provide for a broad range of educational settings, both for face-to-face and remote learning.
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Make innovative use of Artificial Intelligence that supplements but never replaces the role of educators.
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To have a global scope, providing for students and teachers internationally. This includes forging links with exam boards and Departments of Education internationally to specifically provide for school curriculums, and support students in working towards specific exams.
Our inaugural year as a formal charitable entity was in part establishing our base operations, procedures and both short-term and longer-term plans. This included setting up a bank account, establishing several policy documents (including our safeguarding policy) and setting up payroll. Initially we had monthly trustee meetings.
We unsuccessfully attempted to recruit a Chief Technology Officer, but Jamie Frost continued to maintain control over software development, assisted by an outside consultant who facilitated our move to a new server provider to cope with the growing site traffic.
We received a donation of £250,000 in December 2021, enabling us to cover our extensive server costs, as well as allowing a considerable expansion of our resource production. This included forming a team of 10 ‘question editors’ who worked with exam boards to significantly increase the number of questions within our question bank, in particular increasing our provision for Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish schools. We also appointed 4 ‘Champions’ who ran central virtual training events as well as liaising directly with schools and built a system to be able to easily organise these events, allow easy bookings directly from the platform and track attendees and their change in engagement after these events.
There was considerable discussion, particularly with trustees, regarding a potential ‘commercial model’ that would enable the charity to have ongoing reliable income without being full dependent on donors. We experimented with an online facility for donations, although this was relatively unfruitful, given that our market is predominantly schools and student learning within a school learning rather than independent context. We therefore planned an ‘opt out’ subscription model for schools to be adopted from September 2022 (which we will report on in our next annual report, although this was enormously successful).
There were also considerable preparations for a complete replacement of our online platform, and at the end of this period we initiated the services of a software development agency in the interim before we could make our own internal tech appointments.
There was considerable production of new downloadable teaching resources, including hundreds of new videos and Powerpoints, as well development of numerous new online features on our platform to assist teachers in task setting and customising the platform to fit their own schemes of work.
The trustees had regard throughout this reporting period to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit and are confident that all the activities of Dr Frost Learning in this reporting period are consistent with that guidance.
Impact, Achievements and Performance
We saw a continued increase in our usage by schools. We developed a 0-6 metric that measures the combined engagement of students and teachers at a school based on homeworks set via the platform, the number of active teachers and questions answered by students, calculated over the last month period. In this reporting period we peaked at around 1500 schools, the vast majority secondary schools, who were using the online functionality to at least a moderate extent.
School engagement January-March 2021. The drop in late December is due the Christmas holiday. This only encompasses schools using the online question-answering functionality, not the numerous additional schools using the platform just for downloading teaching resources.
In addition to the considerable usage by teachers setting online tasks to students, there was also significant independent usage by students, with hundreds of millions of questions answered in this period. We received countless emails of positive feedback from both teachers and parents. The combination of automatically-marked exam questions, auto-generated questions designed for repetitive practice, worked explanations and support videos ensured that students made excellent progress in their respective schools. In future we hope to produce a more detailed annual impact report.
Our downloadable resources, notably our teaching PowerPoints, continue to be the market leader for mathematics in the UK, with at least 75% of UK secondary schools using our A Level PowerPoints in particular. We have been particularly integral in supporting teacher trainees in terms of resource provision, and Jamie Frost was invited to speak at the Oxford University Department of Education.
There was also strong uptake by overseas schools, largely British international schools, in the Middle East, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
Financial Review
The annual accounts are included at the end of this report and clearly show that Dr Frost Learning finishes the reporting year in a strong financial position with cash funds of £253,602 at the end of the year.
In the charity’s first year of formal operation, the trustees held sufficient reserves for the operation of the charity. The trustees also built reserves to invest in the future to further charities objects.
Structure Governance & Management
Dr Frost Learning is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation; the constitution was adopted by resolution of the founding trustees on 24th June 2021 and amended by a resolution of the members on 21st August 2021.
The charity consists of a CEO (Jamie Frost), and in this reporting period, no permanent staff were employed. The CEO manages the day-to-day operations of the charity, including managing approximately 20 other contracted staff, paid by the hour.
New trustees are advertised via word of mouth or on social media. The appointment of new trustees must be formally approved by majority of existing trustees.
Alastair Ingall Chair
Charity Name No (if any) Dr Frost Learning 1194954
Receipts and payments accounts For the period Period start date To from 01 November 2021
Period end date 31 March 2022
Section A Receipts and payments
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Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds
funds funds funds
to the nearest
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
£
A1 Receipts
Donations 267,694 - - 267,694
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total (Gross income for AR) 267,694 - - 267,694
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total - - - -
Total receipts 267,694 - - 267,694
A3 Payments
Server and IT 6,516 - - 6,516
Software Development 1,660 - - 1,660
Questions (including Key Skills) 5,013 - - 5,013
Marketing and Fundraising 518 - - 518
Management 385 - - 385
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ 14,092 ] - - 14,092
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ - ] - - -
Total payments 14,092 - - 14,092
Net of receipts/(payments) [ 253,602 ] - - 253,602
A5 Transfers between funds - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end - - - -
Cash funds this year end [ 253,602 ] - - 253,602
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Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Unrestricted | Restricted | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories | Details | funds | funds | ||
| B1 Cash funds | Lloyds: 30-98-90 15729968 Total cash funds |
to nearest £ 253,602 - - 253,602 |
H57 - - - - |
||
| (agree | balances with receipts and payments account(s)) |
OK | OK | ||
| Unrestricted | Restricted | ||||
| funds | funds | ||||
| B2 Other monetary assets | Details | to nearest £ - - - - - - |
to nearest £ - - - - - - |
||
| B3 Investment assets | Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) - - - - - |
||
| B4 Assets retained for the | Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) - |
||
| charity’s own use | - - - - - - - - |
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| Fund to which | Amount due | ||||
| B5 Liabilities | Details | liability relates | - - - - - (optional) |
||
| Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees |
Signature | Name | |||
| Alastair Ingall |
Kenneth Batty
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CC16a
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Last year
to the nearest £
-
-
-
-
Endowment funds to nearest £ - - - -
OK
Endowment funds to nearest £ - - - - - -
Current value (optional)
Current value (optional)
-
When due (optional)
Date of approval 16-Jan-23
16-lan-23
CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND ANO WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusteesl members of Dr Frost Leaming On accounts for the year ended 31 March 2022 1194854 (rf any) Set out on pages larK12 I report to the tnstees my examinalion ofthe accounts of the ave charrty rihe Trusf) for the year ended 31 March 2022. Responsiblltlles and As the chatity trustees of the TrusL you are resFMMsible lor the preparation basls of rep(xt of the alxounts in acCda with the requirements ot the Charlties Act 2011 (Ihe Acr). I report in respe of my examinatic of the Trust's accounts carried out under sectson 145 of the 2011 Act and in carFyng Olft my examinion. I have fo11thl Ihe apPIab Directions given by ts Charty Commission under seclion 145(5)(b) of the ACL Independent I have completed my examina11. l (x)nfirm that no materid matters have examiner's statement come to my attenlion in Connecti( wilh the eKqmination bthich gives me cause to belEve that in. any matwial respecL aCcing records vlere not kept in accordan with section 130 of theA¢Xo I have no ¢x)ncems and have come across no other matters in connection th Ihe examinalion to vthich attentirm shwld be dra% in order to ene a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Signed: 13 IUary 2023 Name: Relevant profess[(x1 qualificatlon{s) or boty (If any): FFAJFIPA Address: Pro-Flling Ltd 68 Canterbury Grove LorKlon SE27 OPA