Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Bag2School gives families the opportunity to clear out unwanted clothes, contribute to saving the environment and, at the same time, raise money for school funds. Cathedral’s most recent donations of clothes were collected on Thursday 31st October. The money raised will go directly into school funds to support and enhance the learning of our amazing pupils. Many thanks to parents and carers for your donations!

A new lunchtime coding club for Primary 3 pupils started on Wednesday 30th October. Mrs Tominey, however, was able to take a back seat as this enthusiastic, tech-savvy Primary 4 learner stepped in to lead the club and support the younger pupils with their digital activities. Very impressive, indeed, and certainly an example of developing the workforce of the future!

Following an autumn walk in the school grounds, these Primary 2 pupils enjoyed some Halloween learner-led learning on Wednesday 30th October. The children gathered lots of branches on their walk and, once back inside, worked together to make broomsticks. Planning, designing, creating and teamwork were just four of the skills the children told Mr Young they were using.

There was a SPOOK-tacularly good atmosphere in the hall on Tuesday 29th October for our Halloween discos. Costumes across all stages were absolutely fantastic and the boys and girls had a great time showing off their spooky dance moves!

Many thanks to the Fundraising Committee for organising and co-ordinating the discos, to the amazing DJ Damian, and to all those teachers who gave of their own time to come along and join in the fun.

These individuals are used to hanging around Hogwarts School but they jumped on their broomsticks on Tuesday 29th October to join in the fun at the Cathedral Halloween discos. All four had a MAGIC time dancing the night away with Cathedral pupils!

Good attendance makes a HUGE difference to your child’s progress and attainment. Every school day really does count!

Cathedral’s overall pupil attendance is currently:

94.71% 

This is a drop of 0.95% since mid September. Although this current rate still sits above Cathedral’s attendance target for this session, it is vital we get our attendance back above 95% and sustain this up until June 2025.

Many thanks to all parents and carers for your support in helping us maintain high pupil attendance across Cathedral school community. A helpful leaflet about attendance percentages can be accessed via the link below:

Attendance table

Cathedral hosted a targeted Family Learning workshop on Friday 25th October for parents and carers of pupils currently using Immersive Reader to help with their literacy work in school. Immersive Reader is a support tool built into Microsoft 365 which provides a set of clever features to make reading and writing documents much easier.

The workshop began with a demonstration of Immersive Reader from Mr Quinn before learners joined their parents in the A Team room to compose a piece of writing using the programme. Our young learners were fantastic tutors and parents and carers left the workshop feeling confident about being able to use Immersive Reader to support their child’s learning at home.

Cathedral’s overarching pedagogy (the way in which we plan, teach, organise, facilitate and support learning) ensures an appropriate balance of adult-led, adult-initiated and learner-led learning.

On his usual learning walk through the school on Thursday 24th October, Mr Young encountered some fantastic learner-led learning in amongst the various adult-led and adult-initiated activities. The above Primary 4 learners were engaged in constructing Victorian houses whilst, at the other end of Winners Wynd, the Primary 5 learners below were in the Art Attack zone selecting different craft materials to make a Halloween-themed creation. Of course, all of these young learners had absolutely no problem articulating the skills they were using and developing which included planning, designing and collaborating.

Back in June, our current Primary 5 learners were invited to create a sign for a new play park and a talented Cathedral pupil was chosen as the winner. On Thursday 24th October, the winning pupil attended the official opening of the new park on Roman Road, along with some of her classmates and Mrs Duffy. She was absolutely delighted to see her design brought to life in the real sign which will welcome children and families to the park for many, many years to come.

Even after the 3 o’clock bell, Cathedral learners just can’t resist finding simple ways to add a bit of extra fun and joy to their day. Mr Young caught this happy bunch playing together in the autumn leaves on Tuesday 22nd October. Sometimes the simplest things in life make us smile and laugh the most 🙂

“As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colours enough to paint the beautiful things I see.” (Vincent Van Gogh)