Money that can be spent on toys / equipment, how much?

[ExpectoPatronum]

Can any preschool / nursery staff or committee members give me a view on this?

How do you budget for the amount of money you will spend per month (or per term, or per year) on toys and equipment?

I'm talking about everything from paint, paper, art & craft stuff, sand, replacement or new toys, plus things like loo roll and liquid soap.

At the moment there is a great deal of debate at our place about how much is reasonable, so I'd love to hear other people's views.

Do you have a budget for this, or do you just wing it and hope the money lasts?

Do you set an overall sum, or is it worked out as £x per child?

I'd be very grateful for any insight into how much you spend, and what it needs to cover.

Thanks in advance.

I'm a kindergarten treasurer and I prepare an annual budget.

I'm a kindergarten treasurer and I do an annual budget.

Do you have information about how much has been spent in the past? Other than replacing large items you should find that most other supplies will be used at roughly the same rate each year assuming you have approx the same numbers of children.

You might find that you need to save up or fund raise separately for high cost items.

From memory I think we forecasted around £100 a month, including food for snack the breakfasts and all consumable items like paint, glue, pencils etc. We expected to spend slightly less in the autumn term and slightly more in the summer term as the number attending each session increased.

We also had budgets for printing photos and documents (another £80 a month).

Anything over £50 in value was handled separately.

We budget based on prior spend for consumables, the number of children is pretty static and we have a wish list of larger items (for example new play frames this term)

We always have a ton of sand delivered in the summer holidays so this is earmarked.

I do the budget given what we know of funding levels, numbers of children, staff pay, known expenses, etc and what's left we fight over discuss and agree what is a priority for the kg.

A lot will depend on what you anticipate doing during the year and how your setting runs - is it a kg with just morning sessions like ours or an all day child care provision?

You could walk yourselves through a typical week with each activity - write down what equipment you will use (in 2 columns - consumable (paper, paint) v equipment)

You need then to budget for all your consumables and a % of your equipment to be replaced over the term or year. If you say 10% of value over the year that would be reasonable for us. Though as a Steiner setting there are very few 'toys' and these are pretty hardwearing.