Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

This Primary 7 learner shared a fascinating piece of Cathedral history with Mr Young on Monday 15th September: a photograph of his grandfather’s Dux medal, awarded way back in 1967. As soon as the learner, who is a very keen footballer, heard the date, he said to his papa, “That’s the year Celtic won the Champions League!” St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, is on the reverse of the medal, which is why his papa keeps it safe in his wallet and takes it everywhere he goes. Thank you for sharing this lovely wee bit of Cathedral history!

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

We are now into the sixth week of the school year and Cathedral’s overall pupil attendance is currently:

93.6% 

This is 2% lower than this time last year, so it is vital this percentage is raised as a matter of urgency.

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

It was fantastic to see the hall bustling with so many parents, families and friends on Friday 12th September for our first coffee morning of the year. Hosted by Primary 7, the event raised an incredible £932.59 for school funds. Wow! 

Many thanks to Primary 7 pupils, their teachers and the Fundraising Committee for co-ordinating the event.

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