Stoke Gabriel Pre-School Meeting

14^th September 2005

Present: Thomas Goodall, Laura Kies, Helen Tattersall, Alex Dunn,

Luke Peakman

Apologies: Sam Marney, Sue Stacey, Bryony Saffery, Vicky Porter,

Sarah Toon

Chairs Report: see attached

Matters Arising

Toilets: Helen has made progress and been down and measured up with architects. Plans have been drawn up and Phil Yunnie will be approached to hopefully finalise the plans. These then need to be agreed with the PCC and finally builders can be approached to do the work.

Helen will be contacting OFSTED this week to square it with them and updating the PCC.

Parent Info Packs: These were agreed by all to be very well done and a much needed resource for the pre-school. Thank you to Laura for her hard work.

Constitution: We now have a constitution which simply needs to be agreed and signed by the committee.

Direct Management: Helen has chased the Pre-School Learning Alliance about this but because of the size of the initiative progress has been slow. A big meeting about it is coming up but it has all gone quiet for now.

Fee Slips: A big thanks to Thomas for producing such informative and useful wage slips.

Prospectus: The Pre-School prospectus is still in the throes of being produced.

Parent Questionnaire: Laura will get some sample questionnaires produced by other similar organisations and from these we will put together our own parent questionnaire. We could incorporate OFSTED’s measures for success.

Late Policy: Helen is to write a letter explaining to people that parents must only drop their children off at 9am. Only at this time will the doors of pre-school be opened. Children must be picked up promptly at the end of each session which, for those still confused, is only ever on the hour.

New Child Letter: These forms must be returned A.S.A.P. with two copies of the child’s birth certificate.

Equipment: The soft play equipment has arrived and been set up and used. The children loved it! This was all paid for by fundraising events so thank you all for arranging, attending and spending at these events. These are the great times at pre-school when all the hard work pays off for the benefit of the children. It will make a great difference to the children and staff. A further £500 has just been spent on new toys and equipment and will arrive shortly.

Fundraising

The Pamper Day, organised by Alex Dunn and Vicky Porter and held at Sam Marney’s, was a great success and raised £120. Thank you so much to these three and Caroline Ridge and the other therapists for their hard work. The fundraisers are hoping to do one of these Pamper Days four times a year and the next one is coming up soon. They are hoping to have a manicurist at the next one.

The coffee morning in June raised £160, thank you to all involved.

Thank you to a fantastic carnival sub-committee and well done for the first prize we received. Everything went so well and the kids really enjoyed it.

Christmas Bazaar: A more traditional theme will be running through this year’s Christmas bazaar and plans are being made for this event. Again, thank you to Alex and Vicky for all their hard work.

Treasurer’s Report

The pre-school finances are doing very well and we are on target to make £500 this half term. We are going to set up a separate fundraising account where all the proceeds from fundraisers can go into.

Thomas is stepping down as treasurer at the AGM in April and we will need a replacement. Thomas has requested that anyone interested in the role could please step forward soonish in order to work with him now to learn the ropes. Please, anyone interested approach any staff or committee members now.

Staff Development: Laura has created a superb Staff Development folder which we thank her for. This will be a great resource for supporting staff and feeding back good practice and enhance the teaching at the pre-school. Helen will be setting dates for staff appraisals.

A.O.B.

Firstly, a huge thank you to Kate for all her hard work so far this term and holding the pre-school together through another difficult time with staff absences. A big thank you also to all the people who have helped out at pre-school during this time.

The pre-school committee bid a fond farewell to Claire who has moved on to pastures new. We would like to thank her for everything she has done for the pre-school as a staff member and as the Chairperson who held it all together for those years when she laboured tirelessly. We wish her all the very best in her new job.

The British Legion asked to use The Old School Rooms for a meeting when one of our sessions was running. The pre-school committee felt that with the other places for a meeting available in the village coupled with the upset it would cause staff and parents if one of our sessions was cancelled and the subsequent financial rearrangements we would have to make we would not be cancelling a session to allow them to use The Old School Rooms. We would like to apologise to the British Legion and the PCC for this decision but hope that they understand our reasons for it.

CRB checks are still ongoing for all new staff.

Sue has made progress on the Smoke Alarms and we are hoping that soon this issue will be dealt with. Thank you to Sue for her work in completing this.

We will, as a committee, be putting together a policy on staff absences and a database of people and agencies we can contact in the event of staff sickness/absence.

We will be joining SPPRC which is a resource centre of recycled materials that companies can use.

The next meeting for all parents and committee members will be on Thursday 10^th November at The Old School Rooms. This is after a pre-school session so please attend to help shape the future of the pre-school and be involved. Without us, the parents, the pre-school cannot run.