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A child was excluded from a school trip celebrating 100 per cent attendance because she’d missed one day - to go to her mum’s funeral.

Little Maddie Stevens, 11, was left confused and angry after staff at St Giles’ Junior School in Bedworth refused to let her go to Frankie & Benny’s restaurant with her friends on Tuesday.

Maddie’s mum Gail died of breast cancer in January this year, after a two-year battle with the disease.

The grieving youngster’s dad Andy, a finance manager, said: “It’s just so insensitive after everything she has been through.

“Maddie has been absolutely amazing since her mum died. She took only one day off to go the funeral, because we wanted to keep things as normal for her as we could. But even if she’d taken a week off I’d be saying this.

“She got very upset when Gail passed away and at the funeral, but she’s just tried to get on with things.

“And after all that, she gets this kick in the face.

“Her school should be celebrating what she’s achieved, not saying, ‘You can’t come on the school outing because your mum died’.

“It’s not even about Frankie & Benny’s - my wife and I have said we’ll take her anytime - it’s the principle.”

Maddie said: “It made me feel sad not to be able to go because a few of my friends went.

“It would have been a nice treat. Helping my mum out for the past two years has been hard.”

Gail, Andy’s ex-wife, lived only a few streets away from Andy and his wife Deborah’s home on Blackhorse Road in Exhall, and by Christmas last year, Maddie was staying at her dad’s more often to get used to the transition she would soon have to make.

Andy said: “In November, we were told it would be a matter of months before Gail would die.

“We were really hoping it wouldn’t be at Christmas, and we tried to do our best for Maddie.

“Gail’s birthday was on Boxing Day, so she was allowed out of Myton Hospice for that, but she was so sick she could hardly get off the settee.

“When she went back in again after that, that was it - she didn’t come back out.”

Maddie’s very last Christmas present from her beloved mum was the ice-skating lessons she had wanted.

Since Gail’s death, little Maddie has dedicated herself to her skating, and has even been accepted into the Coventry Blaze’s Ice Hockey Academy.

On Friday, Maddie finished at her Junior School for good, and she will spend the summer preparing to go into secondary school.

Andy, 48, said: “It’s a big moment, leaving your junior school and moving on to the somewhere new.

“It’s obviously a time when Maddie’s mum would have been with her to help.

“Instead, she’s being punished for going to her mum’s funeral.

“When she told me about it last night, she was really angry, but I don’t think she really wanted to talk about it.

“So we’re doing our best to make sure it doesn’t affect her too much.

“It just makes me furious that the school didn’t think twice about Maddie’s situation.

“I got more and more angry each time I think about it, and I’m amazed they didn’t apologise to Maddie. It feels like they’re now punishing us for complaining about it.”

When the Telegraph contacted St Giles’ Junior School, a spokesperson said: “Following concerns raised, the rewarding of pupils for 100 per cent attendance has been withdrawn.”

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