Cat who loves sneaking into school gets portrait taken on picture day

‘I asked her what had gone on and she said he just jumped on the chair. He didn’t need any encouragement, he just got up there for a photo.

‘The school has just accepted him and he goes there at any opportunity. He’s there every day.

‘He sleeps on the headmaster’s desk, on piles of books and he goes into every classroom. He even strolls across the hall when they’re having an assembly.

‘He’s just an absolute menace. It was real mixed emotions, it was funny and embarrassing.

‘The kids see him at school and as soon as you go to pick them up you can hear kids talking about him.’

Headteacher Mark Biltcliffe has said it’s ‘impossible’ to keep Ziggy off the school grounds so they’ve accepted defeat and welcomed the cat with open arm.

Mark even joked that Ziggy’s excellent attendance sets ‘an example to pupils’.

Emma says the cat first visited the school, which just a 10-minute walk away from her home, in 2019.

That day, he hid inside the PE cupboard before being shown the door, but this didn’t deter him from spending his days roaming the halls and chilling out on the grounds.

Mark said Ziggy’s presence even helps some of the kids who don’t have pets at home learn how to interact with animals.

He added: ‘It’s difficult to keep a cat off the school grounds, even if you wanted to, but thankfully he’s one of the nicest cats I’ve ever come across.

‘He thinks he’s a pupil, so it’s fitting he’s had his own photo. I think it’ll be put up on the staff noticeboard.

‘One time he was on the top ledge of the shelves in the secretary’s office, and he’s been known to sneak into mine, sit on the chair and fall asleep.

‘We’ve not been looking to have a school cat or dog really, but he chose us.’

Emma said things with Ziggy weren’t always smooth sailing. After the family adopted him in 2019, he used to ‘wreck the house’ and pull on Megan and Chloe’s hair

But thankfully he soon settled down into his new home. In lockdown, he became ‘reserved and quiet’ when the schools were closed – Emma thinks he missed visiting everyone.

Emma, who lives with husband Kevin Roberts, 53, says she’ll buy a copy of Ziggy’s photo to put up on the mantelpiece alongside the pictures of their daughters.

She has since posted about the scholarly moggy in a viral Facebook post, describing him as ‘ridiculously embarrassing’.

The post has earned over 30,000 likes and more than 4,000 comments from people who love Ziggy’s portrait.

Emma wrote: ‘If a cat could be the village idiot, then that cat belongs to me. He is ridiculously embarrassing. Any opportunity to visit anyone or anywhere he’ll take it.

‘His favourite haunt is the local primary school where he is known to all the children and habitually sleeps on the headmaster’s desk.

‘He took the biscuit last week though, on school photo day when my kids came out from school and handed me these, as well as their own.’