Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Some of our Primary 2 learners have been working enthusiastically with Cathedral’s Attainment Team to strengthen their sentence-building skills and develop greater confidence in independent writing. Through focused activities, the children have been exploring how to construct clear, well‑formed sentences using capital letters, full stops and ambitious vocabulary.

Our young learners have also been given opportunities to apply these skills in their own independent writing, where they are encouraged to think creatively, organise their ideas and take pride in their growing abilities as young writers. Great to see their confidence and skills grow!

On Tuesday 24th February, Cathedral welcomed visitors from St Mary’s Primary, Bo’ness, as part of our ongoing partnership work.

Four pupils, four teachers and the Head Teacher, Mr McPeake, carried out a learning walk of Cathedral to evaluate how effectively we use our various learning spaces to support high-quality adult-led, adult-initiated and learner-led learning. Six Cathedral pupils led the learning walk and there was some great bouncing around of ideas amongst the group.

It is an absolute pleasure working in partnership with St Mary’s to help them embed Active8 in their own school and we wish them success on the next part of their journey.

Our latest Pupil Parliament initiative has given Cathedral learners a voice in shaping their school environment and the activities that take place in it. Thanks to a generous £2000 donation from the Parent Council, pupils have had the opportunity to decide how this money should be spent on new indoor and outdoor resources. In addition, Mr Young has allocated £750 to each learning street to invest in something that will enhance learning and teaching.

Our Pupil Parliament action board—used to help drive ongoing improvement across the school—has now been updated with everyone’s ideas. Over the coming weeks, our two Cabinet Secretaries for Finance will lead and oversee this priority, including working with Mrs McLeish to place the orders.

You can find out more about Cathedral Pupil Parliament by clicking on the link below:

Pupil Parliament |

Primary 4 hosted another successful coffee morning on Friday 20th January. As always, it was great to see the hall filled with families and friends enjoying a catch up over coffee and cake. The event raised a fantastic £836.29 for school funds.

Many thanks to Primary 4 and the Fundraising Committee for organising and running the coffee morning.

Primary 4B have been hard at work crafting their own five‑paragraph warning stories about a lake. Using story maps, the pupils planned their ideas carefully, thinking about the setting, the characters, the danger and the important message they wanted their readers to take away.
Once their stories were written, the class brought them to life by performing them for Mrs Duffy on Thursday 19th February. Their confidence and expression really shone through.

Fabulous work, Primary 4B. Keep writing, keep imagining and keep sharing your stories!

With Valentine’s Day upon us, our nursery learners have been sharing love in all sorts of creative ways! One of the highlights was them forming the word “LOVE” with their bodies — teamwork, fun, and lots of smiles all around.

Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us!

Earlier this term, Cathedral Pupil Parliament worked closely with the Gunn family to create a new annual award in memory of Zac, a much‑loved member of our Cathedral community.

During Class Council meetings, every child was invited to share what they remembered most about Zac and to suggest what the award should represent. These thoughtful ideas were then passed to the Gunn family, who chose unanimously: an award for courage.

Zac’s big brother was especially passionate that the trophy should be a lion, symbolising bravery and strength, and teamed up with Mr Young to find the perfect one. His excitement was clear when the beautiful bronze lion arrived on Friday 13th February.

The Zac Gunn Award for Courage will be presented for the first time at the Primary 7 Graduation on 22nd June and will continue to be awarded each year. A truly fitting tribute to a courageous boy who remains an enduring part of the Cathedral family!

These Primary 6 learners recently rose to the challenge of an open‑ended Explore and Extend activity on their Active8 task-board: to create an ancient Egyptian artefact.

The group chose to make Ra, the sun god, and were excited to share their impressive creation with Mr Young on Friday 13th February. When asked which skills they had used, they confidently listed planning, communicating, collaborating, creating and time management.

They eager bunch have already set themselves an ambitious next step: constructing two more Egyptian gods to feature in their upcoming learning showcase. Great teamwork!

It has been a wonderfully busy and imaginative week in Nursery, with lots of rich learning happening through play. Our young learners have been exploring early maths by identifying and grouping objects into smaller sets, then using simple graphs to show their findings. This has helped us work out total amounts in a fun and practical way.

We have also been learning about the Rights of the Child, focusing on Article 31 – the right to relax and play. We’ve seen this right in action every day as children express themselves in our creative and imaginative areas. Favourite story characters have been springing to life as the children extend their ideas through role play and junk modelling.

In literacy, we have been discovering what postcards and letters are, who sends them, and where they travel. The children decided it would be exciting to write a postcard to their favourite characters, using their own mark‑making to create meaningful messages. After adding a stamp, we took a lovely walk along the road to the Royal Mail post box to send it on its way.

Primary 7 learners gave Mrs Duffy a run for her money on Wednesday 11th when she spotted them in the outdoor classroom collecting data to calculate each pupil’s average speed.

There is something powerful about taking mathematics outdoors. The moment learners step outside, numbers stop being abstract and start becoming something they can see, measure, and experience. This week’s outdoor learning session on speed, distance, and time was a perfect example. Instead of beginning with formulas on a whiteboard, the children discovered the relationships for themselves through movement, careful measuring and real‑world problem solving. Great teamwork!