satellite sites for preschools

[misshardbroom]

I'm wondering if any committee members or preschool staff could help with this:

I am Chair of our parish preschool which is based in a small building on the site of one of the two faith primary schools which serve our big sprawling semi-rural parish.

We're rapidly outgrowing our premises, and due to the layout of the building, we will struggle with implementing the new preschool flexible offer from September 2010.

Meanwhile, at the other primary school that serves our parish, there is an empty preschool building, which is not used for anything. It's totally converted to have everything you would want for a preschool (e.g. kitchenette, office space, child size bathroom, messy play area, carpet area, separate access from the school) but it doesn't have anything in it by way of toys, books, materials.

The idea has been mooted that we could use this space as a second site and expand our parish preschool provision across a wider geographical area. We have taken some advice from Sure Start and the PSLA who tell us this is possible to do, and that the new premises would need to be registered with Ofsted as a satellite site.

Has anybody got any experience of doing this and any words of wisdom to pass on? How do you determine which children attend which site? How was the concept received by the local community.

Most importantly to me (selfishly!) is the question of who did all the work to establish the second site? It would need its own staff, but we can't afford to pay new staff far in advance of children arriving, so did it just fall to the committee to do the work?

TIA.

As Chair of a preschool we are also undergoing fairly major changes to our setting to incorporate the flexible care for 2010.

We have almost secured a grant from Children's Services which was available for PVI settings to build a new, purpose built pre school. We plan to do this in conjunction with a local school and work alongside the school's nursery.

At present we open four mornings a week for 2.5 hour sessions. When we move, we'll be open from 8 - 6 all year round, charging an hourly rate rather than sessional! This could be as soon as this September and to be honest it scares me! When i took on the chair's role I never thought I'd be involved in such a major project!

Anyway, mishardbroom, myself and the preschool leader are doing all the work inovled in this move although we have had great support from our early years advisory teacher and development worker and without them on board, I'd be even more worried! Also, we are concerned about sustainability when we do move, but have been told there are sustainability grants we can apply for to help cover costs - this may be available for your setting too?

sustainability grant is such a good idea, I'd forgotten about that, especially as the new site can house 20 but we'd be unlikely to be full straight away.

Also we're likely to get the grant to implement the flexible offer, so that should help.

But scary is definitely the word, I started this as a volunteer mum and now I'm responsible for spending thousands of other people's money

Hi there,

No advice to give but am very interested in what you are doing. I am the Treasurer of a rual pre school - at the moment we can only open 4 days a week 9.15 to 12.45. I am trying to get a piece of land on which to put a new building so that we can open five days possibly til 3pm and offer outside space (which we haven't got at the moment). We did look at using a spare classroom at the primary school for one morning a week (our closed day) but were told it would need separate OFSTED registration and would need to offer all aspects of the curriculum as an independent setting.

Once I get the land sorted we will be looking at grants - is it a very lengthy process?

Mayron what kind of building are you looking at?

Hasn't been a lengthy process really. Quite unexpected though! Our Pre School was audited by Children's Services in September. Since then we've had three or four joint meetings with children's services and the school and now the architects are involved with a view to moving in September or January. We're joining with the school nursery and will offer their wrap around care so that they too meet the 2010 requirements.

The new building will be half the size of the space we have the community centre - but it will be solely for pre school use. I'm not that sure on exact measurements though. No more setting up and tidying away after every session will be a bonus! We will share the outdoor play area with the school nursery. The school are hoping to fund a link between the school nursery and our new building along with a joint office/staff room.

I too started this as a volunteer mum who didn't really choose to be Chair - kind of got pushed into it - or pre school was closing! With a one and four year old and working 19hrs a week plus this - i'm pretty busy!

don't know whether this is all areas or just ours, but our early years advisor from the council says you're allowed to be paid as Chair if the committee agree to it!! This would really be the best of both worlds as I love the work but it's grown to be a fairly major job in itself. However, it's not the sort of thing you can exactly put on the agenda yourself, is it?!?

Sounds a good idea - think some of our committee members do feel sorry for me and would probably agree to it! Although we can just about afford to pay three members of staff - never mind anyone else! Levels of pay are already an issue at the moment.

Before I took over as Treasurer they were so desperate that they were offering a small salary. However when I looked at the books we were running at a loss and there was no way I could take anything!

Thankfully we now have more children so we are running at a small profit but I need to claw back £1500 we lost last term.

We are registered for 18 children and have three staff every session - what sort of sizes are your pre schools?

I reckon I am spending at least 5 hours a week on the "job" at the moment which will go up if we do get the go ahead for the new building. My youngest turns two in April (others are at school) so I will hopefully have more time once she starts but am considering requesting a free session every now and then to make sure I keep on top of it all.

you don't have to offer the extended care if your premises are not suitable to do so.

We are registered for 24 although at the moment I think we have 20 attending on our busiest day.

I think requesting a free session every now and then is more than acceptable. We've just split the role into three at our AGM in feb - treasurer, assistant treasurer and invoice clerk - to share the workload.

We chose to go with the move and the offer to provided extended care ready for 2010 because otherwise we would end up in direct competition with the local school nursery(who I think have to offer extended care????? but I could be wrong????) and didn't think we could compete with them if that's what it came down to.

IME obtaining grants isn't necessarily a lengthy process, although we're lucky because our early years devt. person at the council is super jet-propelled and really fights your corner for you!!

toomanyprojects [great name, know the feeling!!] - our preschool is registered for 20, and we run morning and afternoon every day and we're bursting at the seams! We have 5 members of staff (2 FT, 3 PT) and we always have over and above the staff:child ratio because we employ our supervisor on a supernumerary basis. However, although this was meant to allow her to do more admin, it doesn't seem to work like that in practise, possibly because we have quite a few EAL children at the moment who need a lot of extra attention.