Our Committee

Woodcote Pre-school is run by parent volunteers.
The Management Committee as of March 2008 comprises:

Helena McBride (Chairman)
Nicki Lecky-Thompson (Deputy Chairman)

Claire Mitchell (Secretary)

Jane Ireland (Treasurer)
Louise Gordon (Treasurer)

Zoe Savage (Health and Safety Officer)

Agnes Clifford Zyms
Kelly Gould
Keith Paskins
Alison Hughes
Tamsin Johns

Joining

Have you ever thought about joining Woodcote Pre-school Committee? If you answer "yes", the team at Woodcote Pre-school would love to hear from you.

The benefits

Research shows clear benefits for children when parents become actively involved in their child's learning and development from an early age. More importantly, it can be great fun.

Volunteering for your pre-school's parent-run committee offers an ideal opportunity for you to become more actively and practically involved in this aspect of your child's life. It will also make a real difference to how Woodcote Pre-school is managed.

You will personally benefit from this experience by meeting with other parents, updating existing skills and learning new ones as well as putting something positive back into your local community.

What is involved?

Your child's pre-school committee leader, Helena McBride, will be happy to tell you in more detail about how you can become involved. There are lots of ways you can contribute to the committee and you can choose to give as much or as little time as you can spare. The good thing is you don't need any experience to make a difference.

Woodcote Pre-school Committee is responsible for the overall management and smooth-running of the setting. This can mean anything from organising a summer fundraising event to negotiating with a landlord over the terms of a lease. Your committee is the employer of staff in the pre-school so has overall responsibility for recruiting, training and developing staff, paying their salaries, and managing their contracts of employment.

Your committee also has responsibility for things such as developing a business plan, managing the daily accounts and, working with staff, ensuring the setting follows health and safety, risk assessment, insurance and first aid guidance and procedures.

What you can choose to do

A lot of the work committees do is fun – building new partnerships with other parents and professionals, coming up with new fundraising ideas, getting exciting plans off the ground; but there are some regular jobs too.

There are three main roles on the committee but all tasks can be shared between different parents so all the work need not fall on any one person.

• Chairman
1. Decides who will attend committee meetings, for example, staff member, head teacher, governor and so on
2. Knows the roles and legal obligations of the committee
3. Organises Criminal Records Bureau checks for new employees
4. Maintains staffing ratios in accordance with National Care Standards
5. Ensures committee members and staff have clearly identified roles and responsibilities
6. Updates the business plan or creates a new one
• Treasurer
1. Reviews fees
2. Purchases equipment (if necessary)
3. Approves an annual budget
4. Monitors the budget regularly
5. Gets accounts checked annually and independently
6. Submits annual return to the Charity Commission
• Secretary
1. Organises agendas and makes sure a record is made of minutes
2. Sets meetings schedule, deciding how often to have meetings and where
3. Updates and circulates contact numbers for committee members and staff
4. Informs Ofsted and Charity Commission of any change
• Shared responsibilities
1. Manage Annual General Meetings
2. Fund raise
3. Carry out risk assessments
4. Examine existing policy and procedures and update as necessary
5. Manage partnerships
6. Review and carry out staff appraisals
7. Organise inductions with the pre-school leader for staff, parents and children

Further information

Come along to our next Annual General Meeting on the 6th November 2008 at 9.15 at the Pre-school to find out more.

If you would like specific information about how to get involved with Woodcote Pre-school Committee, please contact our Committee Chairman or our Pre-school Leader, Liz Newland-Smith on 01491 682300. Alternatively, you might like to talk to another parent who is already involved with the committee; please let us know.

This page was last updated on Saturday 08 March 2008 Copyright © 2003–2008 Rob Hubbard and Woodcote Pre-school Group