A SCHOOL'S attendance reward trip to Chester Zoo has sparked an intense debate.

St Luke's Church of England Primary School, in Fagley Lane, Eccleshill took 100 of its students on the excursion on Thursday, December 9.

It was a reward for achieving 100 per cent attendance at school throughout the Autumn term.

But there were 108 students who stayed at the school because they failed to reach that target, for one reason or another.

This provoked an online petition against the "HERO" attendance scheme, which some felt was unfair.

One parent - who wished to remain anonymous - felt the scheme had rewarded some children who had attended everyday, but were not as well behaved as others.

They said: "The majority of parents are disgusted with the school."

She felt the most important things for her son at school are to be well behaved and prepared for the future, not if he goes in every single day.

But, Headteacher Mrs Zulu said the school received no official complaints and had only spoken informally with two concerned parents.

Those situations turned out to be a misunderstanding with the scheme and were resolved after a meeting, she says.

The Headteacher added: "As with all incentives not all children will achieve each and every one.

"We pride ourselves on the number of different awards our children in school are able to achieve.

"Many of our parents and other visitors to school have offered positive feedback on this aspect of our school life.

"As well as our attendance awards we offer a range of awards and incentives for behaviour across school .

"These are outlined in our behaviour policy which can be found on our school website."

This includes the chance to earn awards for good behaviour - from conduct in school, to learning - with the chance for a £50 Amazon voucher.

But, the anonymous parent feels this pales in comparison to what is on offer for simply attending school.

They said: "Why is attendance such an extravagant reward?

"Why for that and not being a good student?"

It is also alleged by the parent that one of the classes left behind was shown videos of "what they could have had".

The parent said: "The children that were in school were shown videos of Chester Zoo, of the bird house.

"They were asked to draw pictures of parrots, almost like a mini-project."

Mrs Zulu said: "One of the classes did look at clips of parrots, linked to work they were doing.

"Following on from that, one of the children I spoke to during the day said 'I didn't get to go to Chester Zoo, but I like that I got to see videos.'

"It was a positive spin on it."

Attendance remains a sticking point in education, with many schools adopting similar schemes to reach targets.

Mrs Zulu said: "This is a termly initiative which ensures all our children have further opportunities within the year to attend attendance trips.

"Following the introduction of the initiative in September we are already showing signs of improvement.

"Our current whole school attendance is now above the national average.

"As a school we greatly value feedback from our parents.

"Our most recent parent questionnaire, which was completed following the introduction of our new attendance incentive, was overwhelmingly positive with 98 per cent of our parents stating that they would recommend St Luke's to another parent."