Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

One of our current Smart School Council projects is improving pupil toilets to make them more aesthetically pleasing and pleasant to use. Pupils in each learning street were recently consulted on the colour they would like each toilet to be painted and these were finalised on Monday 20th January. Our learners’ choices are as follows:

Brainbox Boulevard

Boys: Blue Babe

Girls: Berry Smoothie

Winners Wynd

Boys: Kiwi Crush

Girls: Pretty Pink

Ambition Avenue

Boys- Kiwi Crush

Girls – Lavender Quartz

If you’re curious what these very exotic sounding colours actually look like, you can check out the Dulux paint chart by clicking on the link below!

https://www.dulux.co.uk/en/colour-details

Once painted, each learning street will be given a budget for finishing touches and accessories. Watch this space for the great toilet transformation!

Cathedral school community is delighted to announce that Mrs Tominey gave birthday to a beautiful baby girl at 3.35pm on Sunday 19th January, earlier than planned, but still weighing in at a healthy 5lb 12oz. Both Bella and mum are doing well. Many congratulations to the Tominey household on the new addition to your clan!

It’s been an incredible start to the new term and, indeed, Cathedral’s 150th anniversary year. Children across the school returned after the Christmas break brimming with enthusiasm and eager to get going with their learning.

As we reach the end of the second week of term, Mr Young encourages parents and carers to dip into our ‘Talking to your child about their learning’ leaflet and select one or two prompts to have a short chat with their child about the past two weeks’ learning. The leaflet can be accessed via the link below:

Talking to your child about their learning

Here at Cathedral Primary, we ensure an appropriate balance of adult-led, adult-initiated and learner-led learning. These Primary 4 pupils took learner-led learning to a life-sized scale when they decided to transform a cardboard box into their very own Jubilee doors. The doors were completed on Friday 17th January and the children were keen to share their impressive collaborative creation with Mr Young. Well done, team!

Buddying resumed on Thursday 16th January and Primary 1c were very excited to head upstairs to enjoy reading with their Primary 7 buddies. The story bags included a soft toy, linked to the book, which added to the discussion and fun. What a great way to develop our school value of CONNECTION!

Cathedral Primary welcomed Mr Jack Rafferty (Grand Knight KSC Carfin) and Mr Michael Roche (KSC Action and Youth) on Thursday 16th January to present certificates to one of our Primary 6 learners who was successful in last term’s Knights of St Columba Christmas art competition. Our talented artist won second place in the local 7 – 11 years category and was also put forward to the national competition.

Following the presentation, Mr Rafferty and Mr Roche enjoyed a tour of the school and were absolutely blown away by the behaviour, manners, engagement and enthusiasm of Cathedral learners. No surprise there!

Mr Rafferty and Mr Roche also became the first visitors of 2025 to receive one of our commemorative 150th anniversary medals.

Mr Young was absolutely delighted to receive a personalised bracelet in Cathedral colours from this Primary 1 learner on Wednesday 15th January. He’d teamed up with his mum at home to make the thoughtful gift, which Mr Young will wear with pride! Thank you!

These Primary 1 learners had great fun in the Small World area of our Play Zone on Wednesday 15th January recreating a scene from one of the books they have been enjoying in class: ‘The Runaway Iceberg’. They selected blue material for the sea, carefully created the iceberg from cotton wool balls and then selected different animals, including a penguin, to complete their arctic world. Well done on your creativity and working so well as a team!

Mass to mark the official opening of our 150th anniversary year will take place in school on Friday 31st January, the Feast of St John Bosco. We are delighted that Bishop Toal will be the principal celebrant and that Provost Duffy will present our commemorative 150th anniversary medals to pupils and staff at the end of Mass.

Please note that, due to Bishop Toal and Fr Lamb being in Rome, we have had to make a change to the dates of our exhibition on the history of Cathedral Primary in St Bride’s Hall in May. The exhibition will now take place on Tuesday 20th, Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd May rather than Monday to Wednesday of the previous week.

Our full programme of events can be accessed via the link below:

150th Anniversary & Jubilee programme