Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Primary 6b have been developing their general knowledge in recent weeks, particularly on capital cities around the world. These eight brain-boxes scored full marks in their class quiz on Friday 10th February, naming all capital cities correctly.

Would all of our newsfeed readers have known the capital city of Switzerland is Bern????

Congratulations to the young footballers pictured above for displaying ACE during training sessions:

A – Attitude

C – Commitment

E – Enthusiasm

Football is an important part of our Come Clubbing @ Cathedral programme and pupils celebrate their successes and update their achievements on their personal ‘Rose Trainer Achievement Award’ record card.

As a Sports Scotland (Gold Award) school, we recognise the many benefits of football:

Encourages an active lifestyle     Taking part in a competitive match, coaching sessions or simply having a kick around with some friends encourages children to get outside and keep themselves active.

Develops communication skills     Children can discuss their tactics or talk about other competitions they have attended in the community. Spending time with each other on a regular basis encourages the development of deeper communication skills and more involved conversations.

Enhances team skills and teamwork     To play football, a good team effort is required and playing regularly will help children develop their skills and work with their team successfully. Our pupils learn to play together and from their experiences, work out how they can be most effective as a collective unit. Being part of a team will also give children a sense of belonging and encourage them to think of others.

Helps to stimulate social skills     Spending time regularly with team mates allows for more complex relationships and more time being spent getting to know each other. Friendships will form and football may have started out as the common factor but it will soon become just one of the things that children have to talk about.

Congratulations, once again, to our ACE footballers!

On Tuesday 7th February, three Primary 6 pupils represented Cathedral Primary at the North Lanarkshire sustainability conference. The children had the opportunity to explore various exhibits and hear from several keynote speakers.

By the end of the morning, the three ambassadors had picked up lots of new ideas about how to care for our planet by living more sustainably and are looking forward to sharing these with the wider school community.

One of the priorities in our 2022/23 School Improvement Plan is reading for enjoyment and pupils and staff have already made great progress in this area. Of course, classes have access to our fantastic library each week and every pupil now reads for at least twenty minutes a day.

On Monday 5th February, two new features were introduced to our weekly assembly. Each week, one pupil and one adult will recommend a book to the rest of the school. The first two volunteers were a keen reader from Primary 5 who reviewed ‘Mega Monster’ by David Walliams and Mrs Campbell who recommended a favourite book from her own school days, ‘The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler’ by Gene Kemp.

Using our latest ‘Accelerated Reader’ data, Monday 5th February also saw the introduction of ‘Bookworm of the Week’ certificates, awarded to our Top 10 readers in P4 – 7 (based on number of words read). Congratulations to our first ten winners, pictured below.

Smart School Council, which gives every Cathedral pupil a voice, is continuing to drive forward change and improvement across our school community.

This term, we are working with the organisation ‘Respect Me’ to review our current approaches to preventing and responding to bullying. This work is being overseen by Miss Degnan, one of our Primary 3 teachers, and our twelve House Captains have already agreed on a number of ideas to take things forward. As always, these are set out on our Smart School Council action board so that our whole school community can be kept up-to-date with progress.

In the coming weeks, House Captains will engage directly with parents and staff to review our current anti-bullying policy; develop termly ‘bullying drills’ to regularly remind Cathedral pupils of what bullying is and how to respond to it; run an anti-bullying poster competition; explore innovative ways of establishing a ‘Friendship Stop’ in the playground for pupils who may be feeling lonely or anxious.

We look forward to sharing news of this important work in future newsfeeds.

Primary 4 entertained their families and the rest of the school on Friday 3rd February when they took to the stage for their Scottish-themed Learning Showcase.

Following the arrival in Scotland of some American relatives, here to visit their granny, the children gave a full history of our nation’s most famous poet, Robert Burns. There were Scottish songs throughout, including ‘The Jeely-piece song’, ‘Bonnie wee Jeanie McCall’ and ‘Yi cannae shove yir granny aff a bus’, as well as some traditional Scottish dancing.

The audience were whisked away to a Burns supper, complete with piper and some cheeky toasts to the lassies and the laddies. Of course, the children rounded off the proceedings with – you guessed it – ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

Well done to each and every Primary 4 pupil and many thanks to Mrs Tominey, Mrs McCulloch and Mrs Hamilton for all their hard work preparing the children for their showcase.

As part of Come Clubbing @ Cathedral, Primary 7 pupils recently completed Young Leaders training with our resident Active Schools Co-ordinator, Fiona Russell. The Young Leader Award is a great introduction to leadership, giving young people aged eleven and over the knowledge and skills to organise and lead small games and activities that can be used as a part of club sessions. Primary 7 engaged in a three-week training programme and were awarded certificates on completion of the module. 

Young leaders from P7a are now delivering daily lunch time clubs to our Primary 2 and 3 pupils and there will be similar opportunities for our other P7 classes later in the session. Our current lunchtime clubs are: 

Monday – Football Skills

Tuesday – Badminton 

Wednesday – Dodgeball and ball skills 

Thursday – Team building  

Friday – Cathedral Crafts 

Each and every parent and carer plays a vital role in helping their child maximise their potential and flourish in school. To support them in this, Cathedral Primary has planned a range of opportunities between now and the summer holidays for parents and carers to get involved in their child’s learning and the life and work of the school.

Please click on the link below to access our January – June Parental Engagement & Family Learning leaflet.

Jan – June 2023 Family Learning programme

Primary 5 have been learning about Chinese New Year, which falls on Sunday 22nd January. These three children popped down to Mr Young’s office to show off their fantastic Chinese dragons, a symbol of power, strength and good luck in Chinese culture.

Cathedral Primary wishes all of our Chinese families a Happy New Year and a prosperous ‘year of the rabbit’.

Gong hei fat choy! 恭喜发财