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2023-09-22-accounts

Trustees’ Annual Report

From: 23 September 2022 To: 22 September 2023

Charity Name:

Sci4Us

Other names charity is known by:

N/A

Registered charity number (if any):

1195906

Charity’s Principal address:

27 Sheringham Road, Penge, London, SE20 7YH

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity:

Trustee name Ofce (if any) Dates acted if not
for the wholeyear		 Name of person to
appoint trustee
Mrs Julie Catherine
Simmons		 Chair
Mr Amit Sharma
Mrs Imelda Manful
Miss Amara Lalemi-
Jacobs
Miss Jessica Opoku-
Afriyie
Mr Daniel Frederick
Misra-Jones

Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing document :

Constitution

How the charity is constituted :

CIO – Association

Trustee selection methods :

Trustees are appointed or reappointed annually

Additional governance issues:

Sci4Us is an engaging STEM Club, led by two young female scientists, who volunteer their time to encourage children aged 5-18, to enjoy and persevere in STEM subjects. We believe that ‘Science is for All of Us’ and hope to inspire and lead the future generation into STEM. Sci4Us provides the necessary STEM learning children need, but is set up in a way that it does not feel like an extension of school.

Resources are provided and tailored to children across the UK, in particular the more commonly over-looked segments of the wider community that typically wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience hands-on STEM focused learning.

By offering these resources, children are able to experiment and experience STEM in the wider society, in turn, increasing children’s science capital.

The trustees represent the voices of the community and help in deciding what activities should be ran by Sci4Us, or where they believe any funding received should be allocated. There is a child protection policy in place and before trustees have direct contact with the children from Sci4Us a Criminal Records Bureau Check is carried out in line with statutory requirements.

All trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits.

Objectives and activities

Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document:

The promotion of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning for the public benefit of children aged between 6 and 16 years in England and Wales by raising more awareness of the subject and its benefits, advancing children’s STEM education and supporting their school learning.

Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects:

The main activities undertaken are as follows:

Undertaking these activities benefit the children by helping them to become aware of the possible merits and advantages of studying a STEM subject even for their future careers too. We also help to create a cycle for the young children whereby they learn STEM and understand the importance of it which in turn as they grow older are happy to volunteer and pass that same learning and understanding down to the younger children. We help and welcome ALL young children between the ages of 6 and 16, regardless of personal background, faith, gender or personal circumstances.

Achievements and performance

Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year:

We believe that ‘Science is for All of Us’ and hope to inspire and lead the future generation into STEM.

Our mission statement is ‘to create, inspire and spread the love and appreciation of STEM from a young age’ .

We are able to qualify how well we have done in the year by measuring our success against 5 different pillars:

A) Access:

There has been an increase in the number of children we have reached both in our physical centres and also in our online sessions.

For our online students, from September 2022 to June 2023, we taught 30 online sessions even introducing new topics such as Lego Engineering this year too.

Every one of our classes have been at full capacity to the point that we now have a number of children who sit on the waiting list wishing for a cancellation.

This was one of our goals for 2023 and it is clear to see that we are on track with this. One reason for this is because we have really understood that Facebook continues to be our main source of intakes.

Through our physical reach, we have been providing sessions in both the Mountfield Community Centre, Orpington and Queen Adelaide Community Centre, Penge. We have seen the numbers in both our centres fluctuate since we resumed in January 2023. We know that we have the ability to reach maximum capacity in both our centres due to them being in prime locations – literally the hub of the neighbouring community. As a result, since the beginning of March we have intensified our advertising. We have also leaned on our connections and links to primary schools in the Penge area and have begun leafleting within the schools too. Right now, we know that we are not quite where we would like to be with our physical reach, but with the things we have now put into motion, we know that in the next 6 months this will change.

B) Increase Science Capital

This year, we invited JP Morgan woman technologists to come teach our children online for a 4-week coding session. This gave children the opportunity to learn more about coding in a fun and engaging way. We provided coding workshops which were all tailored according to the different ages.

C) Careers

In February 2023, we started working on delivering a series of videos showcasing Sci4Us children interviewing STEM professionals. The aim of the series was to allow children to really understand the range of interesting STEM careers out there. We have edited the videos so they are available on YouTube and across the different social media platforms too.

Through the help of Amit, one of our trustees, these videos were circulated to The LEP Network which enabled them to reach and educate a number of children across England!

D) Giving Back

We have increased the number of volunteers that we have taken in to help us deliver our physical Saturday sessions. We are still on track with diversifying our pool of volunteers and in the new year, we will continue to see a number of interested people enquiring on how they can volunteer with us.

Partnerships:

Edmonton Community Charity

From Januart to June 2022, Sci4Us provided an after-school club service at 3 different Edmonton based primary schools. Here, we delivered engaging and hands-on hour-long STEM sessions on a weekly basis to children from Year 3 to Year 6.

Tumino Kids

For Black History Month, Sci4Us partnered with another charity to highlight how STEM can be applicable to everything. Here, we were given the task of using Science to demonstrate the rich history and culture of Africa especially in terms of the jewellery. This was achieved by curating a number of experiments such as helping them make a light up crown. The experiments were very well received that we have been asked to come back again this year.

Financial Review

Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves:

Cash at bank at 22/09/2023 was £3,021.00. The main financial risk to the charity is a loss of partnerships and a main funding source. This year we have been lucky to have built a successful partnership with Edmonton Charity and maintain a source of funding from

Clarion Housing. The funds are held to cover 3.5 months operational costs in the event of a total loss of income and to meet any unforeseen expenditure that may occur.

Details of any funds materially in deficit:

N/A

Further financial review details:

This year we were unable to extend our grant from JP Morgan due to a decrease in the number of grants they were able to give out in their new financial year. However, even though we didn’t gain from them monetarily, as a result of them believing in our charity and what we do, we were still able to work with them to deliver an exciting set of coding sessions to the children.

We received a few donations from some of the parents in November and again in August but nothing in comparison to the grants we received. We received 2 grants from Edmonton Charity: £6,902.72 in November and £2300.94 in February. This grant enabled us to teach at 4 Edmonton-based after school clubs across the year. Through this we were able to curate exciting lesson plans for the children and teach a range of topics. It also meant that each child had the ability to be hands-on in the class too as we were able to provide a resource per student. This left the children excited and even more engaged in our lessons too.

In addition, we also received 2 grants from Clarion Futures: £1,123.75 in February and £2,541.00 in April. The grants received from Clarion Futures allowed us to send science resources to children free of charge and allow the children to partake in both our online and physical sessions. We are also able to provide them with snacks which are also free of charge. The payments also enable us to pay for all the materials and resources we use, staff costs, uniforms and DBS expenses too.

Other optional information

In terms of Sci4Us’ future:

After seeing what we were able to achieve by 22 September 2023, we have very high expectations of what we can achieve in a year's time.

In terms of services, as we would like to continue offering after-school sessions, we are looking in the new financial year to bring onboard University-level volunteers for them to deliver the sessions. This would entail us delivering workshop days in order to train them so they are equipped with the right tools to teach them.

In the new financial year, our focus will shift to ensuring that a physical centre can run as it should without the presence of the founders. This will mean bringing in staff to ensure this can happen. For this to happen it may be likely that again in the new financial year we will have to come to a conclusion on whether we try to maintain both the Penge and Orpington centre or just focus on one for next year.

For both of the above goals to work, we will have to be able to obtain more funding. With more funding we will be able to employ staff as well as still being able to deliver our services to the high standard that we do currently.

As a charity, we will continue partnering with other likeminded charities and organisations. With more funding we will also be able to start utilising LinkedIn Ads too which will give us a chance to connect with even more charities than we did in the past year.

Overall this year has been a great success and we have been able to double our reach as well as maintaining our aim of ‘ increasing access to STEM to groups most underrepresented’. We are hopeful that next year will be just as successful especially with the increase of employees that we are anticipating.

Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.

Sept 23 2022 - Sept 22 2023

Timeframe

Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb
Money in 407 191 - 6,903 756 3,425
Grants 407 191 - 6,903 756 3,425
Charitable Actvtes 407 191 756
Clarion Futures
JP Morgan
Clarion Futures
Tuntmo 191
Immanuel & St Andrews 756
Clarion Futures 1,124
Edmonton Charity 6,903 2,301
Creatve Tuitons 407
Donatons 100
Money out 1,423 1,180 437 1,142 2,011 2,789
Ofce costs 375 - - 333 524
MCC Rent - 180 492
Internetse 306 49
Prime 8 8
Zoom 101 96 32
Maintenance
Insurance 162
Edmonton Library 105
People costs 368 350 - 400 188 -
Staf wages 260 350 400
DBS 48 188
First aid training
Bookwhen
Uniform
Ofsite teacher training 60
Saturday sessions 678 761 437 742 1,448 2,256
Teaching resources 548 641 354 609 1,259 1,927
Postage, packaging, printng, 130 120 83 134 189 329
Other costs 1 69 - - 41 10
Marketng 1 69 - - 41 10
2,667
Opening cash 3,074 1,650 662 225 5,985 4,730
Cash movement 1,423
-988.59		 -436.98 5,760
-1254.98		 635

Ending cash 1,650 662 225 5,985 4,730 5,366

Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept FY
- 2,541 - - - 24 - 14,246
- 2,541 - - - 24 - 14,246
1,354
-
-
-
2,541
24 124
924 676 807 1,827 358 159 281 14,015
68 107 175 - 32 60 - 1,674
168 840
35 390
16
33 100 32 60 454
7 7 13
94 256
105
60 - 260 - 23 23 281 1,953
260 1,270
236
-
23 23 23 69
60 60
258 318
-
707 560 373 1,827 303 76 - 10,169
570 560 373 1,417 303 76 - 8,636
138 - - 410 - - - 1,533
89 10 - - - - 220
89 10 - - - - - 220
5,366 4,441 6,306 5,499 3,672 3,314 3,179 -
-924.37 1,865 -807.1 -1827.02 -358.02 -135.23 - 281 -

4,441 6,306 5,499 3,672 3,314 3,179 2,897 -

12,892 14,246