Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Primary 3 – 7 parents and carers gathered in the hall on Tuesday 17th September to learn more about Cathedral Primary’s Active8 approach. Active8, now into its fourth year, organises learning and teaching across each school day in a way which maximises pupil engagement, challenge and personalisation & choice. Active8 also frees-up more time for teachers to deliver high-quality direct teaching input to ability groups, as well as work with individual pupils.

Mr Young’s presentation included information on Cathedral’s ‘overarching pedagogy’, which ensures an appropriate balance of adult-led, adult-initiated and learner-led learning across each week. There was also input for parents and carers on how to talk to their child about their learning at home. Of course, the highlight of the morning was the opportunity for parents and carers to see Active8 in action and learn alongside their child in their classroom and learning street.

This Active8 Family Learning session will be repeated for parents and carers of P3c, P5a, P5/6, P7a and P7c pupils on Thursday 19th September.

The ‘Talking to your child about their learning’ leaflet distributed during the Family Learning session can be accessed via the link below:

Talking to your child about their learning

This Primary 7 learner popped down to Mr Young’s office on Monday 16th September to share an impressive piece of work he’d completed with his classmate, Max. As part of their Amazing Africa topic, the class had been asked to research a significant or famous African and showcase their learning in a format of their choice. While many of their classmates chose to do a PowerPoint, the boys decided to work together to create this stunning information poster on Steve Biko, the South African anti-apartheid activist. Outstanding!

Mr Young encountered these very creative Primary 2 learners in the Playzone on Monday 16th September when they were adding the finishing touches to a fantastic castle they’d built. The boys had used the skills of observing, planning, constructing and teamwork and, as you can see, were extremely proud of their creation!

Following some thrifty management of the budget over the past year, Mr Young finally found himself in a position in early September to replace all of Cathedral’s ageing interactive SMART Boards, many of which were brought from the old school building. The first classroom to be fitted with their new SMART Board on Monday 16th September was Primary 4b. Mrs McCulloch and her class are absolutely delighted with their new interactive board and are looking forward to using it to inspire, enhance and support learning and teaching in the months ahead.

Please remember that there is the facility to read Cathedral’s website in the language of your choice via the ‘translate’ button. Around twenty different languages are spoken by families across the Cathedral school community, so this is an invaluable feature of our website.

Please click on the link below for instructions on how to use the translate function:

Newsfeed translate

Primary 7 hosted a very successful coffee morning  – the first of the year – on Friday 13th September, raising an incredible £773.40 for school funds. It was fantastic to see the hall bustling with so many parents, families and friends and this Primary 2 pupil was absolutely delighted with his raffle prize!

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

On Thursday 12th September, Mr Young stumbled across Primary 7 in the early stages of learning a song for their upcoming learning showcase on Amazing Africa. Is it really any wonder Mr Young just LOVES coming to his work every morning??!!

 I KNOW THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES WHO CARE FOR AND LOOK AFTER US. HWB 0-45a

 I LISTEN OR WATCH USEFUL INFORMATION AND USE IT TO MAKE CHOICES OR LEARN NEW THINGS. LIT 0-04a

UNCRC Article 3 The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children.

Our young learners have been learning and developing their understanding of rights and responsibilities and we selected two rights to focus on this week:

• Our right to be loved and respected and the responsibility to show love and respect to others.
• Our right to be heard and the responsibility to listen to other people.

The children have demonstrated their understanding of these rights by showing their friends love and care and by listening to each other when they have been playing.

Our Primary 6 buddies have started their regular visits and our young learners have taken great pride showing them around the different areas of our nursery. Our buddies have participated in group ring games, role-modelling positive interactions and turn-taking skills.

As our new-starts continue to settle into nursery life, we have been telling our ‘all about me’ stories. This has allowed the children to share things about themselves, get to know one another better and become aware of one another as individuals.

As mentioned in our website newsfeed over the past few days, Cathedral learners are currently focussing on different ways to improve and support pupil wellbeing, including having calming music and a ‘worry monster’ in our learning street wellbeing areas and placing a house plant on each classroom group table. However, Cathedral’s hard-working teachers and support staff have not been overlooked and Mrs Murphy has refreshed the Staff Wellbeing area in the staffroom. As autumn arrives, Cathedral staff can select some healthy fruit, dip into a magazine, curl up with a new book or simply be inspired by one of the quotations such as ‘I choose to start today with a smile!’ 😃

As reported in a newsfeed item posted earlier this week, several classes came up with the fantastic idea during Smart School Council of putting a house plant on each classroom group to improve the wellbeing of Cathedral learners. The first plants began to arrive on Wednesday 11th September, including two from this Primary 1 pupil. A warm Cathedral welcome to Tommy Tomato and Rosie Rosemary!