A JUNIOR school has cancelled its sports day on the hottest day of the year.

Stanford Junior School cancelled its year three sports day this morning.

Parents have contacted this newspaper to say they were sent a text message at 8.30am - an hour and a half before the event was meant to start.

One said: "Many parents will have made special arrangements to take the day off work so that they could attend the sports day.

"While I understand the school's concern is the welfare of the children, to cancel at 90 minutes' notice shows remarkable inability to plan and a lack of respect for both children and parents."

The Argus understands the sports day has been rescheduled for July 15.

In an email to parents headteacher Paul Davis wrote: "As headteacher, I have made the decision to re-schedule sports day.

"I think the reasons are clear as to why this decision has been made and I am not going to spend a disproportionate amount of time justifying this decision which was made with the health and safety of all children (and adults) in mind.

"Having spoken with the Health and Safety team, there are no limits on when it becomes too hot in a school building but there are recommendations not to have children engaging in vigorous activity, inside or out, if temperatures are excessive.

"The school's attendance team have confirmed that children taken from school will generate an unauthorised absence. Brighton & Hove's legal team have also confirmed this."

In a response to The Argus, Mr Davis said: "Given the very hot weather forecast for today we feel we made the right decision in postponing our sports day.

"The Level 3 Met Office warning issued this morning meant that the impacts of the severe heat were likely to affect health.

"We believe our decision was consistent with government health and safety guidance.

"We left the decision as late as possible as we knew how much our school community was looking forward to the event.

"We would like to apologise to any parents who have been inconvenienced by our decision to leave it until today to make the postponement.

"In future we may consider making any such decisions further in advance."