Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

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)

These Primary 4b learners had great fun carrying out a Halloween-themed science experiment on Tuesday 22nd October. The class learned that water and oil don’t mix… unless, that is, you cause a spooktacular chemical reaction using an effervescent tablet! Wow!

As part of their current ‘Talk for Writing’ unit on report writing, our young scientists will capture their learning by writing-up their angry monsters experiment in their WAC jotter.

Next year, Cathedral school and parish will be an incredible 150 years old. How amazing to think that pupils, staff, parents and parishioners are part of a community of faith and learning stretching back fifteen decades!

As Term 2 begins, the Cathedral school and parish community will be looking ahead to our 150th anniversary and planning how we will mark and celebrate this remarkable milestone in our long and proud history throughout 2025. Watch this space!

What an INCREDIBLE start to the year at Cathedral! Highlights have included a visit from Provost Duffy; our House Captains attending a special Mass in the cathedral for the Papal Nuncio’s visit; Smart School Council leading improvements to our learning spaces; a packed cathedral for our Primary 1 Welcome Mass; three Family Learning workshops; our choir singing at Glasgow University; new SMART Boards being fitted in every classroom; a successful coffee morning; and a fantastic Primary 7 learning showcase. Why not scroll back through the newsfeed to relive the special moments of Term 1?

Our Primary 5 learners spent the last day of term, Friday 11th October, extending and applying their recent learning with a coffee shop themed day. Learning activities included maths calculations using the Starbucks menu, tapping into their senses to write descriptive pieces about the sights, sounds and smells of a coffee shop and learning about the importance of Fairtrade coffee. The day concluded with teachers stepping into the role of baristas and helping the children prepare some delicious hot chocolate.

As we arrive at the October holidays, Mr Young would like to give a HUGE shout out to Cathedral learners for their enthusiasm, smiles and incredible hard work throughout this term. He would also like to extend his sincere thanks to Cathedral staff for their care, dedication and boundless creativity. Go Team OLGA!

Have a fantastic October break, everyone, and see you on Monday 21st October.

Flynn, one of our Primary 1c learners, and his mum viewed this absolutely beautiful sight of the aurora borealis (the northern lights) shining over Cathedral Primary School just after Parents Evening on Thursday 10th October. Thank you so much for sharing!