Crosspool pre-school volunteer wins award

A local volunteer has won an award for his outstanding voluntary work at Crosspool Community Pre-School.

Martin Swift began volunteering at the pre-school in 2011 and his commitment and contribution to the charity was recognised when he was presented with The Pre-School Learning Alliance Volunteer Award for the North Division at an event in Leeds.

Pre-school Manager Lauren Hodgson said: “Martin became our chairperson in 2011 when his eldest daughter attended pre-school. His son has also attended pre-school last year and he has another child to follow.

“He has shown a high level of personal commitment and made a valuable contribution to the running of our committee and pre-school. This has enabled our community based pre-school to continue to run and provide high quality education and care for local families.

“Martin has been very supportive in helping implement changes such as our lunch time club which enabled children to attended mornings and afternoon sessions. This has helped working families, provided a social opportunity for the children to eat together and generated much-needed revenue for pre-school and helped us be financially sustainable.

“When pre-school was flooded in 2012 he helped with our insurance claim and the big clean up. As a result, pre-school was only closed to families for two days as we relocated into our main school building.

“Martin was a fantastic support during our Ofsted inspection in 2015 and was available to talk at length to the inspector about his role as chair of the committee and pre-school’s strengths and priorities for improvement. We were very pleased with our ‘good’ judgement. He was proactive in our recruitment for a new deputy manager and helped with the restructure of the staff team. He spent many hours developing the interview process and chaired the interview panel.

“Martin attends and chairs the regular half term committee meetings and is available for conversations throughout the week. He regularly comes to visit the setting and is a familiar face to the children, families and staff team. He helps with any financial matters that arise and makes suggestions and contributions for our policies and procedures. He also helps with any issues or concerns that are raised and helps develop our plan for improvement.

“Martin’s support has been vital for the effective running of Pre-School and I really value his support and contribution as the chair of our pre-school management committee. The award reflects Martin’s hard work and responsibility as an outstanding volunteer as our nominated chairperson which is essential for us to continue to run as a pre-school for children in the community.”

Martin is now through to the National Pre- School Alliance Learning awarding in London on 16 June.