Stoke Gabriel Pre-School Committee Meeting

15^th February 2006

Present: Helen T, Kate P, Thomas G, Alex D, Laura K, Luke P

Apologies: Sue S, Sam M, Bryony S, Vicki P

Chairs Report: see attached

Supervisors Report: see attached

Treasurers Report: see attached

Health and Safety Report: see attached

Matters Arising

Toilets: OFSTED have still not responded to our requests for lenience from the official regulations on toilet facilities due to the difficulties we face installing another toilet. Helen will chase them further.

Members of the committee and staff have met with members of the PCC to discuss storage and tidiness issues that have arisen. Our staff have cleared away much of the equipment that was lying on top of the cupboards, tidied the kitchen, the mezzanine and improved general states of tidiness and cleanliness in the Old School Rooms. We will also be, as requested, getting rid of the seat boxes. The PCC are going to fix up the kitchen.

In response to the Supervisor’s Update, which in fact is a letter to the committee from the new staff, a ‘wish list’ has been proposed to be put together by the staff for the committee with priority and costs and this will hopefully be fulfilled as much as is financially viable. As can be seen from the Treasurer’s Update the pre-school is currently doing fairly well and there is still some money available to be spent from past fundraisers. What cannot be bought on the wish list we can then fundraise for directly.

Parent Info Guide (P.I.G.)

Laura has completely revised the information pack and brought everything up to date and has very successfully made it a welcoming, informative and useful document vital to the pre-school and should, in the future, give new parents a much better idea of what we do and are about. In future all the consent forms will go out to new parents with this guide.

The P.I.G. raised the issue of parent-pre-school communication and there was felt to be some scope for improvement in this area. Possibly sessions could be organised where parents can come into the pre-school and observe and talk to staff about their children. A lot of work and preparation would be needed to be put in by both committee and staff to make this work.

Policy Review/OFSTED

The committee are currently putting in place some official policies such as:

Grievance Policy, Disciplinary Policy, Complaints Policy, Staff Children Fees Policy and also an official policy needs to be agreed about session bookings and payment. A sub-committee of Helen, Laura and Thomas was set up for a Fees Review to make the system fairer and more easily understandable and to bring us in line with how other pre-schools book sessions and charge parents.

Resources

Kate indicated, as was highlighted in the supervisors report, that there was a need for more educational resources for the children and for the staff, who need curriculum support materials. The committee again gave the go ahead to buy more resources subject to approval by Helen, Thomas and Laura. These educational resources were considered to be a priority.

Fundraising

Vicki, Alex and Sam are in the process of putting together a Pamper Evening which will be along similar lines to the very successful Pamper Mornings with the key difference being that it will take place on an evening. It was suggested that maybe, subject to demand, there could be a Pamper Morning and Evening once a term.

The Christmas fayre raised £540 in total a good amount of which went to the pre-school.

It was suggested that an Easter event should be held this year. Festivities will be coordinated by Helen, Alex, Vicki and Sam.

It was suggested that future fundraisers should raise money for pre-selected equipment/resources that the staff feel are needed to improve the pre-school. This means that parents and staff can immediately see the benefits of their hard work and support going straight back to improve their children’s pre-school.

A.O.B.

It was felt that the pre-school needs a bit more publicity and recognition within the community, maybe a monthly entry to the Stoke Gabriel News might not be a bad thing. Luke to organise.

At the next A.G.M. at the end of March we are, sadly, going to lose our hardworking and much loved Chair, Treasurer and Health and Safety Officer. At the moment we are lucky enough to have a potential Chair replacement and replacement Treasurer(s), this means that at the next A.G.M. we will need a new Health and Safety Officer and also a Vice-Chair. Please, please, please if anyone is interested please come forward now. As we have said before the pre-school can only stay open if we have all the roles of the committee filled by volunteer parents. Our pre-school is lovely, successful and your children love it and they need you to help make it work.

Next meeting is the A.G.M. on Wednesday 29^th March for all parents.

It will be held at the V & A pub in Stoke Gabriel starting at 7:45 pm.

Please be there.

CHAIRS REPORT – 15 February 2006

Staffing

Sarah gave birth to a boy, Brodie, on Wednesday 4^th January. Both Sarah and Brodie are doing well.

Bookings

As anticipated, numbers are a bit lower this term as we had seven leavers at Christmas.

We have 14 funded children on our register, for whom we will receive funding for 11 weeks of the term which totals 610 funded sessions this term. In addition we have four non-funded children who are booked in for a total of 13 sessions per week between them.

We welcome our new members – Ellie, Jack and Thomas. We hear from school that Rosie, Ethan, Alicia, Jamie, Ben and Matthew are settling well into their new school routine.

We have had a few prospective parents visiting/due to visit soon, so hopefully the numbers will increase in due course. After half term, we anticipate being full on a Monday and Wednesday morning. Thursday mornings are quite quiet.

Committee

It has been brought to my attention that the AGM is scheduled to take place in the Easter holidays (Weds 12th April 2006). So I am proposing to bring this forward to Weds 29 March 2006 at 7.45pm in the V&A upstairs room.

Thomas Goodall, Sue Stacey and myself will be stepping down from our respective roles of Treasurer, Health & Safety Office and Chair at this meeting, so we are actively looking for our replacements. Please contact any member of the committee if you would like more information.

Helen Tattersall

Health and Safety Update Feb 2006

Risk assessment for 2006 carried out on 09/02/06.
New form within Risk Assessment – do we want to do a full inventory?
Do we want to display Health and Safety poster or a COSHH poster? (www.hse.gov.uk)
First Aid Training – Katerina needs an update.
Staff are requesting new, lighter and safer to use sand pit on a wheeled stand (available Mothercare – approx £35)
Committee needs to ensure that staff are aware of reportable incidents under RIDDOR (committee does the report of any serious incident or illness with supervisor). Report to H.S.E.
Two insurance questions new on this year’s form: p9 Q. 16j. and p10 Q. 19c, please fill in appropriate answers.
Kate is acquiring an info. sheet on poisonous plants for the staff and Sue is checking with the PCC that no spraying is done in the Orchard.
We need a supply of electricity socket covers – they regularly go missing!

Committee responses

No need for poster to be displayed as all relevant Health and Safety documents will be given to current staff and included in induction packages for new staff.

Old sand-pit will be removed and a new one will be bought – included in staff wish-list.

New electrical socket covers will be bought.

The Health and Safety documentation will now be stored in the pre-school and all staff and committee must be made aware of them.

Emergency action plans will be put together and all staff will be made aware of the procedures.