The parents of a young footballer who missed several GCSE practice exams are locked in a dispute with his school over his absence.

Henry Lovering goes to Oakwood Park grammar school and is a Maidstone Schools District keeper, an under-16s Kent league keeper with K Sports and a previous winner of the England Schools Cup.

The 15-year-old was chosen to travel to Barcelona to compete with ProSoccer Academy in a week-long European Tournament for the Barcelona Cup.

Youth teams from around the world took part and Henry’s ProSoccer team triumphed.

But his mother, Suzanne Parr, says the trip was marred by his school’s reaction to him missing class.

The Oakwood Park School did not agree to authorise his absence, which Mrs Parr had applied for in November 2015, ahead of the tournament at the end of June.

However, she decided to take her son out of school so he could go to the event in Spain.

“It was a fabulous opportunity to travel with an incredibly talented squad of outstanding Kent players,” she said.

Head teacher Kevin Moody wrote to the family saying he would apply to the county council’s education and young people’s services department for a penalty notice to be issued.

He wrote: “We did not take this decision lightly. We always prefer to work with parents but in this instance we feel your decision to withdraw Henry from school against our advice leaves us little choice but to take further action.”

Henry’s attendance over the year was 91.7%. This is above the 90% threshold for an automatic penalty notice, but the work he missed meant the absence was deemed unacceptable.

The GCSE pupil’s parents, of Warden Mill, Wateringbury, believed they were facing a fine, but Kent County Council said after an investigation it decided not to issue a penalty as the absence was not under 90%

But Ming Zhang,from the local authority, said: “The pupil at Oakwood School missed school during term time for a visit abroad, which was not authorised by the school.”

This comes after a successful legal challenge brought by a father who refused to pay a £120 fine for taking his daughter on a term-time holiday.

Henry is now catching up with work he missed, including sitting three practice maths exams, an ICT-controlled assessment, history coursework and an English language assessment.

The county council said a 90% rate was equivalent to taking one day off school every two weeks and it works with head teachers to ensure students are regularly in classes.