Cardinals are doable : you could have a larger than life cardinal taking down a 'cat'
"chasing back at the cats" "Cardinals- afraid of no cat!" buy small red stress balls and toss them out to kids, or some other small incentive
or as testing progresses show a cardinal creeping up on the cat, in the end the cardinal takes the CAT in its mouth - there could be bread crumbs dropped as a trail to the 'cat' the crumbs would be the tips, eat a good breakfast, 8 hours of sleep or more, pack a snack, be positive,...don't know if this is any good. I once needed to inspire and did a Churchhill Downs theme on a wall with each class having a horse that progressed over the hurdles as books were read-the first over the finish line got a pizza/popcorn movie day from the Home and School. It worked !
What is your school mascot? Could the "Bulldogs" be taking the CATS down in 2006!
or
"Making its way up the tree of education GLE climbs with the CATS" make a tree (visual aids always tend to help) put the last few years scores on the trunk and have a cat climbing up higher into the tree
"Tearing our teeth into the CATS" could come up with more if I had more info. such as mascot,grade level this is for.. I assume CATS are an acronym for state standardized testing right ?
