The Hurst Community College

The Govenors recently reviewed our Attendance Policy and would like to inform you of their decision to change the authorisation of absence during term time for family holidays.  All of the Primary Schools within the Hurst cluster have also recently considered this issue and all have proposed and agreed a new policy whereby holiday absence in term time will not be authorised.  Therefore, from the start of the new academic year in September 2011, absence for the purpose of a family holiday will no longer be authorised (several school clusters in Basingstoke will also be adopting this policy.).

Due to changes in safeguarding and health & safety in schools, all pupils who attend The Hurst on crutches or using a leg brace, whether on a temporary or permanent basis will require an assessment to be completed prior to being allowed to stay in the College.

The assessment is to confirm whether the pupil will be safe enough to stay in school, and will not injury themselves further or cause injury to others.

Parents of pupils using crutches should telephone the school, as soon as possible, informing the Welfare Office/Medical Room of the injury and confirm the date of the pupils' return.  The pupil must be brought into reception on their first day back, where the assessment can then be carried out.  Parents are required to stay with the pupil until the assessment is completed, as there have been a small number of instances where pupils have had to return home as the College has deemed them to be unsafe.

Any medication brought into school (except emergency medication) should be handed into the Medical Room on arrival with a letter from a parent/guardian confirming that the school is allowed to administer the medication to their son/daughter, the time and dosage.

For further information and guidance on illness and other injury, click here or select the 'Info' tab, then 'Pastoral'.

The College will not automatically close due to bad weather, however should we experience extreme weather conditions during the winter, and you are unsure about whether the school is open you should:-

Should we have major problems during a school day we would inform parents by phone and via our website - pupils would NEVER be asked to do this on our behalf for obvious health & safety, and "prank" reasons.

In the event your child is unable to attend school, they will be able to access work via VLE.

Access your school work at home

The Hurst School has remote access facilities available.  This enables pupils and staff to access their personal files (y: Drive) and the network shared areas from home.  To enable this we are using a product called Ranger Outpost which can be downloaded and simply installed from the secure VLE.  All instructions on how to use this new facility are available here by logging on the VLE.