The Attend Ants Arrive In Manchester To Help Improve School Attendance

A colony of child friendly ants - known as the Attend Ants - have just arrived in Manchester on a mission to help improve attendance at the city's primary schools.

For the last six weeks of this term primary school pupils across the city have been listening to a specially commissioned story about the Attend Ants and their journey to Manchester. The Attend Ants are on a secret mission, and pupils at Christ the King Primary School, Newton Heath, were amongst the first in the city to find out what that secret mission is.

Using super slick sound and vision technology the Lord Mayor of Manchester Mavis Smitheman revealed to them that the Attend Ants have journeyed all the way from their Ant Kingdom to Manchester on a mission to improve school attendance and to make sure that all primary school children in the city know how important it is to attend school every day.

The Lord Mayor was joined by Attend Ant Yoji, who was specially chosen by the Ant Mystic to undertake this mission, and his best Ant friend Della, who made a surprise visit to the school to meet the children who have been listening avidly to their unfolding story over the last few weeks.

The Attend Ants campaign features a cast of twelve fantastic child friendly cartoon ants - including Ant hero Yoji, his best friend Della and the Queen Ant. Each of the ants has their own name, unique personality, and behaviour traits that it is hoped children will identify with as they listen to the story of the ants' adventurous mission.

Now that the Ants have arrived in Manchester, they will spend the summer familiarising themselves with the area before taking themselves out into schools across the city when the new academic year starts in September to help reinforce the attendance message to primary school pupils.

Councillor Sheila Newman, Executive Member for Children's Services, said: "The summer holidays may be about to start but we hope that the story of the Attend Ants' arrival here in the city will fire pupils' imaginations and stay with the children until they return to school in September to remind them of the importance of being in school every day they should be."

The end of this school year also marks the retirement of Christ the King Primary School Head Patrick Devlin after 40 years in teaching - 18 of them spent at Christ the King - and only one day off work in all of his 40 years. To the delight of pupils he was given a special certificate recognising his own excellent attendance by the Attend Ants.

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