Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

P4a visited Motherwell Heritage Centre on Friday 15th March for an art and wellbeing workshop. The children explored a selection of paintings, dating back to the 1940’s, by local artist, Millie Frood. Our young learners participated in a guided meditation session before using the various pieces of artwork as inspiration for their own masterpieces.

As part of their current class topic, Knights & Castles, Primary 2 pupils were set a homework

task to build their own model of a castle. The children showcased their incredible models to their peers on Friday 15th March and had the opportunity to give written feedback to their friends via post-it comments. Mr Young was extremely impressed by the array of castles (one was even made out of biscuit!) and could see how much the children had enjoyed making them. Well done, Primary 2!

Pupils and staff brought a burst of colour and fun to Cathedral Primary on Friday 15th March for this year’s Crazy Hair Day. As you can see from the photographs – one from the nursery and one from each of our four learning streets – pupils and staff had great fun conjuring up an array of whacky hair styles!

Most importantly, of course, the day raised more money for our two Lenten charities, Missio and SCIAF.

As we continue to look ahead to our inspection from HMIe, which is likely to take place between now and the summer holidays, this week’s Friday Focus is on self evaluation and quality assurance.

Rigorous self-evaluation and quality assurance are fundamental to the effectiveness and success of Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School & Nursery Class.  Cathedral views self-evaluation and quality assurance as an opportunity rather than a requirement: a chance to reflect on our vision, values and aims and to take an honest look at where we are now, where we want to be, how we know we will have arrived and how we are going to get there.

Quality Assurance includes the Leadership Team monitoring teachers’ planning and pupils’ jotters as well as conducting lesson observations. The Education Scotland document ‘How Good is our School? 4’ is used to evaluated Cathedral’s current performance across a range of Quality Indicators and set our next steps. Teaching staff also collaborate in small groups called Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to reflect on and improve their day-to-day practice.

An important part of Cathedral’s ongoing self-evaluation is our annual pupil, staff and parent/carer questionnaires which gather feedback and views on a number of areas. This information is used to identify and address issues which may have gone unnoticed as well as inform improvement priorities.

ALL self-evaluation and quality assurance is about improving outcomes for our young learners. Cathedral continually endeavours to be the best it can be so that, in turn, each and every Cathedral pupil gets the very best learning experiences and reaches their full potential.

Here in Cathedral, pupils write independently for short bursts EVERY day of the week as this allows learners across the school to apply what they’ve been learning in phonics, spelling and taught writing lessons. Mr Young was extremely impressed when he popped into a Primary 1 class just after the 9 o’clock bell on Thursday 14th March and found Cathedral’s youngest learners starting off their day with independent writing. Well done, Primary 1, on your super sentences, super spelling, super letter formation, super punctuation and super enthusiasm for your learning!

A team of Cathedral pupils took part in the North Lanarkshire cross country finals at Wishaw Sports Centre on Wednesday 13th March. The course was over a distance of 1.5km and the Cathedral team gained a 10th, a 24th and a 30th out of the hundreds of competitors. Well done, everyone!

Primary 3 pupils currently have the opportunity to participate in a lunchtime football run by Motherwell Community Trust. The eight-week club, overseen by Coach Ellie, is supporting our young learners to develop their football skills and teamwork.

The Cat in the Hat (times 5!) appeared at Mr Young’s office on Friday 8th March. Primary 1 had been very busy colouring, cutting and gluing in the Playzone to create their fantastic masks of the well-known book character and had just as much fun showing their completed creations off! Well done, everyone!

All Primary 4 – 7 classes had the opportunity to visit the recently-refurbished Motherwell library during the week of World Book Day… and what an incredible week it’s been. The highlight for pupils, staff and parents was definitely the fantastic new immersive room. The fully immersive, 360-degree pod with sound, smell and interactive elements transported Cathedral pupils back to the time of the dinosaurs, under water to swim with sharks and even to the beaches of World War II Dunkirk. What an incredible resource to have within walking distance of our school!

Mr Young was very impressed when he popped along to the sign language club on Thursday 7th March. The children were very confident signing the entire alphabet, which also allowed them to sign their own individual names. Our young learners have been learning to sign a song, which they’ll perform to the rest of the school at assembly before the end of term.

Well done, boys and girls, and many thanks to Miss Tyrell for running our BSL club.