Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

A number of local schools came together at Cathedral on Friday 12th September for a friendly football tournament. Teams from Cathedral, St Brendan’s, Our Lady & St Francis, Keir Hardie, St Patrick’s, Christ the King and St Theresa’s each played seven matches during the course of the morning. St Brendan’s Primary won overall, with Cathedral coming a very respectable second place.

Congratulations to St Brendan’s and many thanks to Mr Maxwell, DHT from Our Lady & St Francis Primary School, for organising the tournament.

Primary 4b were very busy in Cathedral’s Investigation & Innovation Hub on Thursday 11th September.  Joshua, one of our Primary 4b learners, was eager to share what his group were collaborating on:

“Our challenge was to make a paper aeroplane based on an animal that flies.  Our group discussed animals that fly.  We decided to base our aeroplane on a bat.  I was the Team Captain.  I logged onto the laptop to find pictures of bats.  Our Chief Architect, Jade, then used the pictures to sketch a plan of our design.  Next, Damian, our Master Builder, constructed our design. Finally, Amelia, our Testing Coordinator, put our aerophane through several tests and it passed with flying colours (except when I launched it and it flew out the window!).”

What amazing learning, and what an articulate description of the creativity skills being used and developed in Primary 4b!

The title of this newsfeed post was the wee joke Mrs McDerment shared with her class on Thursday 11th September as the children embarked on their colour mixing art lesson.  The Primary 3b artists started by learning about primary colours before moving onto secondary colours. They were able to share with Mrs Duffy that their ‘next step’ is to learn how to mix secondary colours for themselves.  Look out Picasso: you have competition here in Cathedral!

Primary 2b learners visited the Playzone on Thursday 11th September and, as part of their free-play session, these highly-engaged learners decided to head to the Post Office.  They were under the watchful eye of a very efficient Post Master as they used their knowledge of money and their counting skills to pay for the postage.

On Sunday 31^st August, this young learner made their way to a swimming competition in North Ayrshire.  She managed to win not one, but two medals at the meet.  For the 50m breast stroke, she came in 3^rd place winning a bronze medal, but in the 50m front crawl she came in an impressive 1^st place, taking gold!  We are very proud of her achievements and look forward to hearing about more super swimming success in the future.

As part of Cathedral’s 150th anniversary celebrations, learners planted 150 daffodil bulbs on Tuesday 9th September. Under the watchful eye of Head Gardener, Mrs Findlay, the bulbs were carefully planted around a statue of Our Lady and will bring a burst of colour to the playground once winter is over and spring arrives. Many thanks to Goulding’s Garden Centre for kindly donating the bulbs.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/nl/olga/2025/08/26/gouldings-donate-daffodil-bulbs-to-cathedral/

Our first ‘universal’ Family Learning workshop of the year, for parents and carers of our new Primary 1 pupils, took place on Tuesday 9th September. The workshop focused on Primary 1 literacy, particularly Cathedral’s approach to teaching phonics.

Mr Young opened the workshop by talking about Cathedral Primary’s holistic approach to literacy:

• a rigorous synthetic phonics programme to give children the tools they need to read and write
• the use of decodable reading books during phonics lessons to give children instant success and build their confidence
• exposure to non-decodable reading books to develop vocabulary and comprehension
• access to ‘real’ books through regular visits to the school library
• daily opportunities for the children to apply their phonics and reading in meaningful ways across the curriculum

The remainder of the workshop was led by Mrs McCoy who gave a presentation on ‘Read Write Inc. Phonics’, followed by a live phonics lesson with a group of Primary 2 pupils. The children were absolute superstars and parents and carers were amazed to think that’s what their own child will be able to do in just a year’s time.

Our August – December Parental Engagement & Family Learning leaflet can be accessed via the link below:

Aug – Dec 2025 Family Learning programme

As part of our targeted family learning programme, Cathedral learners have the opportunity to attend our Monday homework club and even bring along a parent/carer to join in their learning. The club, which supports learners across the school, provides a warm, quiet space for pupils to complete their homework, have access to any learning resources they need and get expert help from our Attainment Team if they get stuck. Of course, there’s juice and a biscuit to stop any rumbling tummies and a cuppa for the grown-ups!

Many thanks to our amazing Attainment Team, along with Mrs Devaney and Miss Cawley, for supporting Cathedral pupils’ learning beyond the end of the school day.

“To always be close to Jesus, that’s my life plan.”

Blessed Carlo Acutis has been close to the hearts of Cathedral learners for some time. They take inspiration from his short but remarkable life which included defending the weak in school, building a website to share his faith and helping the poor and homeless of Milan.

Blessed Carlo Acutis will be canonized by Pope Leo XIV on Sunday 7th September, making him the first millennial saint. To mark this joyful occasion, Mr Young has gifted the above statue of Carlo Acutis to Cathedral school community.

We pray that the holy and courageous life of the Church’s newest saint will continue to inspire us.

You can read more about St Carlo Acutis by clicking on the link below:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/nl/olga/blessed-carlo-acutis/

I am learning skills and strategies which will support me in challenging times, particularly in relation to change and loss. HWB 0-07a

I have explored numbers, understanding that they represent quantities and I can use them to count, create sequences and describe order. MNU 0-02a

This week in Cathedral Nursery, our learners have been focusing on the wellbeing indicator SAFE, exploring and learning about different ways to keep themselves and their friends safe. Our young learners have been exploring risky play, looking out for hazards and identifying what they can do to make sure the nursery environment is safe for everyone to play and learn.

Numbers have been a big focus for our young learners this week and they have been out exploring the local community in search of numbers. Some of our pre-school learners have been writing numerals with various tools in the mark-making area. Younger learners are beginning to recognise and name individual numbers.