forming a comittee to run a a nursery as a charity - any words of advice on how to manage a nursery please?

[gringottsgoblin]

our playgroup has been run the same way for about 30 years, but for one reason and another things must change, so the best way we have found is to register as a charity and for the parents to form a committee who will manage it. unfortunately none of us have any experience managing a nursery so we are reading the books to tell us what the legal side is but i thought there may be more people here who can help. any advice is very much appreciated - if this goes ahead we will need liability insurance, bank accounts, payrolls etc etc. its a fairly mammoth task, the committee wont get paid but the nursery may close if we dont do it.

pretty please?

You need a professional nursery manager, I'm afraid. Ofsted alone is a total nightmare.

I am a trustee/head parent for a local parent-run co-operative nursery (parents work shifts, alongside qualified staff), and we wouldn't manage without the nursery manager. We used to, but it meant that parents had lots and lots and lots to do, that thye weren't qualified to do.

We poached ours (more or less) from another local parent-run nursery. She worked part time for us initially, while helping staff at the other nursery get trained up to do managing.

try the Pre-School Learnign Alliance - they have sample documents and policies.

thanks shrinking, will try that.

nursery currently has a manager, but ofsted said the admin side wasnt good enough, hence the committee. its my understanding that the committee cant be nursery staff as staff are employed by the committee, but its the responsibility of the committee to ake the decisions. however the manager is very laid back and im not sure how much admin is being done by the book. so can we employ a manager to do the admin but who wouldnt be stafF? you can probably tell im rather confused about the whole thing you sound like the person i need nqc

Our manager is staff. I don't think a committee can do admin, at least, they won't be qualified.

What, exactly, is wrong with the current admin? What skills does the manager have? Is she interested in getting better at the admin?

Admin isn't (from what I know) about the big decisions, it's about having the right paperwork, often.

its more of a supervised toddler group than a nursery tbh, the lady who runs it has been doing it since before ofsted came along with all the rules and regs, so i dont know if it is done exactly the same as it was 20 years ago but i know there are several things not done to ofsteds liking. i think she would rather not do the admin as that isnt why she got involved, she got involved to look after kids (as you were allowed to do back then!).

i havent read the book i was given about it yet, just another potential committee memeber was saying this morning that the committee has to do all this stuff so if you dont do it maybe she has the wrong end of the stick

if we did employ a manager that would be quite a hunk of money which they dont have, it would change it a lot if it had to become more profit orientated which would be a shame

Well, somebody has to do it. We employ a manager (who also is hands on with the kids, and lovely at it) to do it. But if you're happy with your current worker, and happy to do the admin, then see if you can get it working that way around.

Will the worker you have be happy to change some things so Ofsted will be happy? Is she ok with the parents actually running things?

i think it mostly isnt being done, thats why ofsted arent happy. i dont think we would want to change staff so as long as we get enough parents on board we should be ok, its just getting people to sign up! i have skimmed through book and it looks like we dont have to do it but its on our heads to ensure it is done correctly, i assume its the same with you? i guess we could ask at school if there is anyone with experience would do part time hours for us if necessary.

so what do you actually do other than meetings nqc? we were thinking of having a meeting at end of every half term to tick the boxes and were hoping that might be about it, is that ridiculous? me and he lady i was speaking to today are happy to do the admin we need to do but we do at least need people to turn up to meetings. we also dont want to tell people its just the meetings and then be nagging them all the time so if you could let us know how many hours you spend on stuff that would be really helpful, i am very grateful for your advice

Well I can't decide on my business form - should you have some professional advise?

I might be a co-op, a social enterprise, a community Interest Company ro a combination of them when I open my nursery

Maybe you should employ an administrator? to do the finance/payroll etc But I imagine OFSTED what fairly efective plannning too which an administrator prob couldn't do

You can employ as many people as you like to do the admin, you just have to raise the money to pay them.

I am a little confused, are you claiming Ofsted funding (up to 5 x 2.5 hours/week preschool sessions)? Do Ofsted get involved if it's just a regular Parent+Toddler/preschooler session, otherwise?

Typically in a committee-run preschool (playgroup is the old name for "preschool") the paid staff deal with only some day-to-day things, and all the educational side (planning, meeting standards, admissions). The trustees (committee) have to be familiar with the educational standards, but trustee jobs are more to do with personell management, policies, some procedures, finance, filing annual reports, fund-raising and SOME of the health and safety issues.

You should definately contact the pre school learning alliance. Lots of playgroups are charities with a parents committee who employ staff to work with the children and the PLA will have lots of advice. They can also sort out all insurance cover and give you legal advice. There will be a local rep who will be sent out to help out set up and maybe sort out mentoring with another group. If you say you will close without help I'm sure they will be very helpful. I'd say the admin side can be divided between employed staff and committee easily enough, but it will involve more than just the people turning up once a term for a meeting. Things like payroll can be contacted out - some companied specialise in pre-school payroll - we have certainly had flyers in the post before. You could also pay someone to do stuff like waiting list, CRB checks, charity commision, check you get the right grants for children, ensuring first aid/food hygine/child protection training is current, building maintenance etc or this can be done by committee. Think the committee will need to do policy and constituion - but the PLA have standard versions. The staff will need to do the record keeping for the children and curriculum planning stuff. If ofsted isn't happy then your report should state exactly what they want to do. So basically you can employ someone to do all the admin side if you can afford it and they would not be the committee but answerable to it. The committee would still be the trustees and need to ensure they are happy with how things are run. What qualification do your staff have ? I would think at least the leader should hold a recent NVQ level 3 in early years (or whatever it is currently called). Maybe you should also look at staff training?

Gringotts- sounds like you've got a basket of problems there!

Lizp has hit the nail on the head- get advice.OFSTEd can't just say it's not good enough then run off & leave you! You shoould have an Early Years Advisor in your Area (or could now be a Birth to Fives support team) they are paid by the local authority to advise & guide all childcare settings on what to do to gain full registration & how to get there.They also advise on training available for staff etc. Get her/him to come & have a chat I'm sure it would be useful.

GoodLuck!

thanks for all the help, i will speak to the nursery manager today and see what she says about the admin being taken over, i will also look into all the other suggestions

Keep us posted gringotts!