A six-year-old girl was banned from seeing Kung Fu Panda 3 with her classmates – because her attendance slipped when she was off school with a sickness bug.
Alissa Browning spent 48 hours recovering in bed at home after suffering from a bout of vomiting and diarrhoea before Christmas.
But her short absence from the classroom saw her attendance drop below the 96 per cent threshold for pupils to enjoy an after-school screening of Kung Fu Panda 3.
Year Two pupil Alissa was penalised after falling less than one per cent under the threshold, with a 95.2 per cent attendance.
Fairfield Community Primary School, in Warndon, Worcs., runs the special outings to reward children with high attendance records.
The school has the second lowest attendance in the whole of Worcestershire with 93.7 per cent, according to latest Department of Education figures.
Yesterday (Thurs) Alissa’s mum Emily Ramage, 27, from Worcester, blasted the school for punishing her daughter for being ill.
She stormed: “My daughter is upset and doesn’t know why she hasn’t been allowed to go.
“She keeps asking if it is because she has done something wrong and I’ve told her she hasn’t, it is because she has been poorly but she said ‘I can’t help being poorly?’
“Nobody can pre-book an illness and you wouldn’t want to pass it on to other people in the class.
“I don’t let my children have time off willy-nilly, their education is very important.”
Interim head teacher, Vivienne Cranton, has defended the policy, saying the reward scheme was intended to improve attendance.
She said: “We have already seen a two per cent swing in attendance which is amazing.
“As a head teacher I have very a strong belief in reward systems rather than sanctions.
“We were at 93 per cent attendance which Ofsted calls ‘well below’, which is why we have to raise that and one of the ideas we had was to reward children who showed good attendance of 96 per cent or above.
“It’s been very popular. We’ve had people who have been on previous trips who aren’t on this one and we did have a bout of flu that affected quite a few children but they should be able to go on the next one as that will be negated next time.
“That’s why we run it six times a year. We can’t go through every child’s attendance record, that would be impossible, and that is where the difficulty lies.
“This is done by lots of schools nationally. We explained it to the children and the children seemed to accept it and it has already made such a massive difference.
“I understand why people may be upset but this isn’t our only rewards system and we run termly trips to support their work in class.
“I think what we will look at in the future is perhaps look at most improved attendance but we have to be careful we’re not rewarding people for persistent time off.
“We’re between a rock and a hard place”
Many parents of children at the school have spoken out about the attendance policy.
Tracey Sharp, 30, said: “My daughter also couldn’t go to the Christmas trip because she is under the paediatrician and has hospital appointments.
“I think it’s awful that she’s made to feel like she’s done something wrong for going to the hospital, I agree with the children who miss behave constantly but it’s discriminating the ones with medical issue.”
Leanne Roberts, 29, said: “School trips are supposed to be educational and a reward of good behaviour.
“No school should not allow children to go because of days off ill, it is not a child’s fault that they are poorly.
“No child should be banned from a trip unless there behaviour is poor and doesn’t improve, and even then the school should be supporting them to be better and achieve a goal suitable for them.”
