Hunsley Primary Newsletter – 2 June 2026

Welcome back! I really hope that you have had a fun week and enjoyed the sunshine. As we get ready for the final – and often hottest – half term of the year, we want to share a reminder about staying safe in the sun:

We will always offer the children shade and water throughout their time outside
We will monitor and manage the time children spend outside, especially at the hottest times of the day
Please can parents / carers ensure children are prepared for the day with longer-lasting sunscreen, a water bottle and a sun-hat
Caps are provided in Reception, so no need to send one in unless you have a preferred style
Children are free to come to school in their PE kit (black shorts and plain white T-shirt) on the hottest days

We have had a range of interesting nature and sustainability-themed activities recently. You might have spotted the signed copy of David Attenborough’s book, ‘Ocean’, in our foyer. The children were lucky to receive one of a hundred signed copies following our participation in the birthday celebrations a couple of weeks ago. Also, the ‘Secret Gardener’ finally made an appearance on Friday in Reception, to show the children how to plant seeds and left them a kind gift of a seed planting tray! Year 3 and 4 also enjoyed a very interesting talk from Mr Paddy Hall (our former Chair of Governors) who came to share his knowledge and experience of chalk stream conservation.

On Monday 13 July at 2.30pm, we will be opening the school grounds a little earlier for the children to run stalls which they are completing to raise funds for their House Team Charities, The Woodland Trust, The Yorkshire Air Ambulance and the RSPCA. Parents and carers are welcome to come on site early, browse the stalls with their child and take part. Please bring change! There will be cake stalls and refreshments too. If you are able to bake and donate cakes or other bakes goods for the stalls, please see below for details.

Finally, a very important request regarding attendance and term-time holidays. We always strongly advise against taking children out of school for holidays or unauthorised absences as it is a requirement for children to be in school daily in term time, unless for an authorised reason, such as illness. We notice a significant impact on the children’s attendance statistic during weeks where parents remove children from school for holidays, for example the week running up to Half Term last week. This is why we encourage parents to consider any planned absence from school as ‘exceptional’.

Whilst we recognise that parents and carers may want to access holidays outside the window of official school holidays, general holiday absences are not considered exceptional and are unauthorised. Holiday absences often have an impact, both on the individual child’s access to learning and their access to all that is gained by attending school every day. We always want to work together to achieve a good overall attendance for everyone in school. Good attendance reflects on the positive commitment of all families in our school community, playing their part in ensuring children attend as often as possible throughout the year and by not taking term-time holidays. We understand that illness and other absence naturally occurs, and so this kind of absence is supported through our Medicines Policy and other wellbeing policies. However, holidays taken in term time do not meet the national expectation of all parents and carers to send their children to school daily and so we thank you for recognising the importance of the message we are sharing. It is also really important to share that, where it is unclear whether a family has taken a child out of school for a holiday or not, the advice of the Local Authority and Education Welfare Officer is followed and that the absence will be recorded as Unauthorised unless medical / appropriate evidence is able to be provided for the child’s absence from school.

For any absence request which is planned, please ensure the form is submitted 2 weeks prior to the date of the absence.

Thank you all for your ongoing support of the school.

Yours sincerely,

Lucy Hudson

Headteacher

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