Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Pupils, parents, staff and parishioners celebrated Cathedral Primary School’s feast day on Friday 6th September with a Mass in honour of Our Lady’s Birthday. Primary 5 pupils had responsibility for the readings, prayers of the faithful and offertory and our sixty-strong choir led the hymns beautifully. Our new Pupil Chaplains from the IGNITE team also assisted with the celebration, including greeting people at the door.

Save the date: our Primary 1 Welcome Mass, which ALL Cathedral families and parishioners are most welcome to attend, will be celebrated in the Cathedral church on Thursday 26th September at 10.00am. We very much look forward to formally welcoming Primary 1 pupils and their families to the Cathedral family. Pupil Chaplains will be commissioned during the welcome mass and Cathedral teachers will renew their commitment to their vocation as Catholic educators in the presence of the school and parish community.

A Family Learning workshop for parents and carers whose first language is not English took place on Thursday 5th September. Mrs Leitch, our cluster EAL teacher, modelled some activities to support their child’s learning of English at home and provided parents and carers with a pack to take away with them.

Principal Teacher, Mrs McCoy, gave a brief reminder of Cathedral’s approach to teaching phonics, showed participants some videos from the Read Write Inc. Phonics virtual classroom, along with instructions on how to access these at home, and then provided parents and carers with a phonics information booklet in their own language. Booklets distributed this year included Romanian and Bulgarian, just two of the many languages spoken in Cathedral’s vibrant and diverse school community.

Following the first Smart School Council meetings of the year on Monday 26th August, House Captains conducted an inspection of learning streets to identify what was working well and make a note of areas for improvement. This information was shared with our amazing Support Assistants who quickly got to work to bring about the changes, including some wonderful finishing touches from Mrs Mellon.

The different zones of our learning streets are now better positioned, better organised and better resourced… all set to continue to facilitate enjoyable and challenging learning experiences for Cathedral pupils!

 I CAN LISTEN WHEN AN ADULT IS TALKING AND RESPOND TO INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS. LIT 0-04a

 I AM LEARNING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES WHICH WILL SUPPORT ME. HWB 0-07A

This week, our young learners have been using and building on their existing skills, whilst learning new skills too.

In our STEM area, we have provided the provocation of plastic cups and our young learners have been balancing, stacking and constructing towers. This involved the children in problem solving and also developed their perseverance.

Our learners have been accessing our outdoor area, where stilts have been particularly popular. The boys and girls have worked together as a team to help each other balance and master walking along without support.

This month’s wellbeing indicator is SAFE and our learners have talked about and demonstrated how to stay safe both indoors and outdoors.

Congratulations to Primary 6 pupils who were successful in their interviews to become Nursery Buddies. Our enthusiastic and committed learners responded to Mrs Duffy’s job advert, completed an application form and went through the interview process.

The successful applicants graduated from Buddy Training School on Wednesday 4th September, signed their contract and will begin their Nursery Buddy shift rota in the coming days.

You can find out more about how Cathedral develops the workforce of the future by clicking on the link below:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/nl/olga/developing-the-young-workforce/

Cathedral pupils learned about Blessed Carlo Acutis at assembly on Monday 2nd September: a remarkable teenager who is on his way to being canonized a saint by the Church. Each class was presented with a picture of Blessed Carlo Acutis and a statue of him now has pride of place in the school foyer. Cathedral pupils will have further opportunities to learn about Blessed Carlo Acutis in class during the month of September and several books about his life have been added to the school library.

Carlo Acutis (3^rd May 1991 – 12^th October 2006) was an English-born Italian Catholic who built a website about Eucharistic miracles and approved Marian apparitions. Carlo was well known for his cheerfulness, computer skills, care for the poor and deep devotion to the Eucharist, which was central to his life. He was beatified by Pope Francis on 10^th October 2020, two days before the 14th anniversary of his death from leukaemia. Blessed Carlo Acutis is on track to become the first millennial canonised as a saint by the Church and is an inspiring role model for all Cathedral pupils.

Please click on the link below to watch a short animation about Blessed Carlo Acutis.

A lunchtime Primary 4 chess club, overseen by Mrs McCulloch, started on Monday 2nd September. Mrs McCulloch intentionally took a supervisory role during the club, allowing older pupils Ryan, Kamil, Nikodem, Ruadhán, Alfie and Lucas to share their expertise and skills with Primary 4 pupils less experienced at chess or completely new to the game.

Many thanks to Mrs McCulloch for taking our new chess club and to all teachers, parents and volunteers who give so willingly of their time to ensure Cathedral pupils benefit from such a wide range of fantastic opportunities out-with their classrooms.

A very exciting Primary 3 – 7 Family Learning session is coming up in just over two weeks’ time.

‘Active8’ is now into its fourth year here at Cathedral. The upcoming Family Learning sessions, which will take place on 17th and 19th September, will begin with a presentation on recent developments to Cathedral’s innovative approach to organising learning and teaching at which parents and carers will receive materials to help them talk to their child about their learning. There will then be the opportunity for you to join your child in their classroom to see Active8 in action, share in some of your child’s learning activities and use the support materials to talk to them about their current/recent learning.

Details of the Active8 Family Learning sessions are as follows:

Tuesday 17th September (9.15 – 10.00am): P3a, P3b, P4a, P4b, P5b, P5c, P6a, P7b and P6b

Thu 19th September (9.15 – 10.00am): P3c, P5a, P5/6, P7a, P7c

Ahead of the above sessions, you are encouraged to familiarise yourself with the leaflet you will be given on the day which has been specially developed to support Cathedral parents and carers to talk to their child about their learning. You may even feel confident enough to start using it at home before you attend the workshop!

Please click on the link below to access the leaflet:

Talking to your child about their learning

For those parents and carers new to Cathedral, each month we focus on one of the wellbeing indicators displayed in the above wheel. In class, pupils reflect on and assess their own health and wellbeing and complete their individual wellbeing wheel. At the beginning of each month, prompts for the particular indicator are also posted on our wesbite newsfeed to support parents and carers to talk to their child about their health and wellbeing. PLEASE SEE PROMPTS FOR THIS MONTH’S INDICATOR (SAFE) BELOW.These learners from Primary 5/6 were starting to think ahead to September’s wellbeing indicator and were excited to show Mr Young the wellbeing wheel they’d built during a learner-led technology session. How innovative!

September’s wellbeing indicator is SAFE. Please use the prompts below to talk to your child about this indicator. This will help them complete their wellbeing wheel in school.

Nursery and Primary 1

• I feel safe in my classroom.
• I feel safe in school. 
• I feel safe when I’m not in school. 
• I can name the emergency services. 
• I know what to do when I need help. 
• I know how to help others. 
• I have people who help me when I am sick, in danger or need to learn. 
• I can work safely when using different equipment. 
• I know that medicines can be harmful. 
• I know how to cross the road safely. 

Primary 2 – 4

• I feel safe in my classroom and in school.
• I feel safe when I’m not in school.
• I know how to contact the main emergency services.
• I have people who help me when I am sick, in danger or need to learn.
• I can handle equipment safely.
• I know how to safely store different types of food.
• I know that medication can be used to help with illness but can be harmful too.
• I know how to cross the road safely.

Primary 5 – 7

• I feel safe in my classroom and in school.
• I can perform basic First Aid procedures.
• I know how to contact the emergency services and give full details of the incident and location.
• I know about the risks associated with the use of substances, alcohol and cigarettes.
• I know that taking risks can affect my life in different ways.
• I have someone that I can talk to if I am worried about my safety.
• I am learning about respect for my body and know what behaviour is right and wrong.
• I can handle food and kitchen equipment safely and hygienically.

Cathedral’s House Captains squeezed into a packed cathedral on the evening of Friday 30th August to welcome the Papal Nuncio, His Excellency Archbishop Miguel Buendia, to Motherwell Diocese. It was a grand and uplifting occasion, one which is sure to stay in the memories of our House Captains for many years to come.