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Trustees Report for Financial Accounts for year ending 30™ June 2025
Ahoghill & District Community Preschool Playgroup
80 Cullybackey Road, Ahoghill, Ballymena, BT42 1LA
Charity Number - 100885
Principle Activity of the Charity
The aim of the group is to enhance the development and education of the children under statutory school age in the local community.
Charity Trustees:
Mrs Laura Nelson
Mrs Amy Scott
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Mrs Kelly Crawford
Ahoghill playgroup is a voluntary organisation managed by a group of parents elected annually and who meet on a monthly basis to discuss issues concerning the group.
The playgroup’s main purpose is to enhance the development and education of the children under statutory school age by encouraging parents/guardians to understand and provide for the needs of their children. a) offering appropriate play facilities, with the right of parents/carers to take responsibility for and to become involved in the activities of the group, thus ensuring that the group offers opportunities for all children, regardless of culture, race or means and b) encouraging the study of the needs of the children and their families and promoting public interest and recognition of the needs of the children and their families in the local area c) support the values and principles of Early Years-The Organisation for Young Children.
Our Public Benefit statement is as documented on the Charity Commissions register and has remained unchanged since our registration on 12/12/14. The Committee Members/Trustees have had regard to the Charity Commission public benefit for this financial year ending 30/06/25.
We are registered for a maximum of 26 children per day to attend playgroup. For the academic year ending 30/06/25 we had 26 full time preschool children. Places were funded by the Education Authority.
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The following are some of the activities we offered this year to provide the above named areas of learning-
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e Wecreated weekly plans for age-appropriate play-based activities to cater for all ages and stages of development of the children within our group.
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e Wehad a number of visitors including: Jo Jingles, Jump Jiggle & Jive, Pudsey, Police, Dental Nurse, Optician, Fire Brigade, and a local illustrator.
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e Wecontinued to use the Lending Resources- Library and Physical Packs with some additional funding from Getting Ready to Learn, we purchased some new resources to enable us to make up other packs.
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e We share any available/relevant information to the parents via Seesaw about The Getting to Learn Programme. The importance of reducing screen time and a good bed time routine. We held 6 parent stay and play sessions, these offered the parents an opportunity to see what their child does at playgroup and hear about the learning potentials within these activities. These were well supported and parents expressed how they enjoyed them.
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e We encourage parents to get involved and share their children’s learning through becoming a committee member, assist with fundraising, and coming into the group to talk to the children about their job e.g. nurse, scientist, postal worker, stay and play sessions, Christmas Concert and Sports day.
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e The parents bring the children in to the community centre in the morning and then the children go on into the playgroup. The parents pick their child up from outside the community group.
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e We encourage parents to use the playgroup mobile number if they want to discuss any concerns so we can arrange a suitable time and date to talk as this keeps within our confidentiality policy. It also helps with a smooth drop off and pick up if parents have already messaged ahead. We provide newsletters and any relevant updates through Seesaw.
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e We now have internet in the community centre and the playgroup has use of this.
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e Weuse Seesaw to send out group updates, newsletters and any relevant resources from other sources e.g. getting ready to learn or RiseNI. We sent photos out when we had special events taking place. We use Tapestry for updating parents on their child’s development.
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e Weare also doing shared links with our local primary school where they invited us to see their newly built sensory room and gave us a tour of the whole school. Their Primary 1 teachers also visited our playgroup during June to share an interactive story with the children, which was a fantastic way to help them prepare for their transition into Primary
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e Weheld parent/teacher feedback meetings to keep parents in touch with how their child was developing. This provided the parents/carers with an opportunity to discuss any concerns they have about their child.
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e This year we again took part in the 3+year review. Parents/carers completed a questionnaire and could make an appointment to speak to the Health Visitor.
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e Wedid some fundraising this year, we did odd socks day with a special visit from Pudsey, Valentine’s Day raffle and Teddy Toddle Walk. Funds were raised by selling raffle tickets and giving out sponsor sheets. The money raised was used to purchase new toys and resources for the children and for other items
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that playgroup needed.
- e We continue to review our policies and procedures and adhere to these. We have a policy file with all policies available to parents daily if they need to read these.
Staff continue their personal development by availing of online courses. These include: First Aid, Fire Safety Awareness, Safe Guarding/Child Protection training.
Our annual inspection by Social Services took place in October 2023 but no report has been issued by social services.
We continue to seek parent’s comments/feedback during parent meetings/events/at arrivals times and these have been very positive. Parents showed their appreciation to the staff at the end of the year with numerous comments made about the high standard of care, dedication and commitment of the staff during their child’s year with the group.
This would suggest that we are meeting the needs of both the children and the parents who use our playgroup as outlined in our purpose.
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