Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Cathedral pupils were recently asked via their Smart School Council class meeting how we can celebrate diversity across our school and campus. As always, the children came up with fantastic ideas and, on Tuesday 28th November, our twelve House Captains met with Mr Young and Mrs Duffy to collate these into common themes for our Smart School Council Action Board.

Our four Diversity projects are:

• Create a new welcome display at the school entrance which celebrates Cathedral’s diversity. This will include an ‘inspirational quote lucky dip’;
• Include a dedicated monthly ‘celebrating our diversity’ slot at assembly;
• Plan and hold a Diversity Day next term. This will also include the development and launch of a Cathedral cookbook;
• Use our class ‘showcase walls’ to highlight and celebrate Cathedral’s diversity. These will be ready for Parents Evening in March.

Mr Young would like to thank Cathedral learners from across the school for coming up with such great suggestions. The above four projects will be taken forward and actioned by our twelve House Captains over the coming weeks.

Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral was packed with family and friends as sixty-five Primary 7 pupils received the Sacrament of Confirmation on Monday 27th November. Each and every pupil participated attentively and prayerfully throughout the liturgy and the children’s beautiful singing of the hymns added to the prayerful atmosphere.

Many thanks to Bishop Toal and Fr Lamb for celebrating the liturgy, to parents and families for accompanying the children on their on-going faith journey, to Miss Cameron, Mrs McLaughlan, Mrs Shevlin and Mrs Findlay for preparing their classes for the sacrament, and for all those – from the school and from the parish – who worked so diligently behind the scenes to ensure everything ran smoothly on the night.

We continue to keep all those pupils who were confirmed in our prayers.

We love celebrating wider achievements here at Cathedral, with pupils having the opportunity to record them on their personal ‘Rose Trainer Achievement Award’ card. The above three Primary 7 pupils were recognised for their impressive football skills during the recent Motherwell Community Trust awards ceremony, including for ‘Players’ player of the Year’ and ‘Coach’s Player of the Year’. Well done, girls!

Our most recent Smart School Council project focused on improving learning streets. Cathedral’s four learning streets (Discovery Drive, Brainbox Boulevard, Winners Wynd and Ambition Avenue) are extensions of classrooms and we want them to be vibrant, well-organised spaces which support our Active8 approach and inspire and facilitate amazing learning.

Pupils across the school were asked through Smart School Council how they would like to improve their learning street and came up with the following requests:

• We would like learning streets to be zoned to include a technology/construction area, a reading area, a Publication Station for independent writing and a ‘wellbeing area’;
• We would like systems in place to ensure resources are quickly replenished when they run out;
• We would like systems in place to keep learning streets tidy and organised, including brushes and dustpans to clear up after messy learning.

Staff in Winners Wynd worked together on the inservice day to respond to the children’s requests by zoning the learning street and reorganising and labeling resources. New technology/construction resources have been ordered, a well-being area set up and pupils are already enjoying the new reading area, where they can curl up with a book.

Pupils and staff from Brainbox Boulevard and Ambition Avenue are pulling together their final plans and the children will see these two learning streets transformed in the coming weeks.

Our latest Smart School Council focus is on how we can celebrate diversity across our school and campus. Cathedral pupils had the opportunity to explore what makes us different and what makes us the same at our whole school assembly on Monday 20th November and this week’s Smart School Council meeting will ask the children to brainstorm their ideas for celebrating Cathedral’s diversity.

Watch this space for news of our updated Smart School Council Action Board!

Our January – June Family Learning programme has now been finalised. Along with the usual coffee mornings and learning showcases, there will be the opportunity for Primary 3 – 7 parents to find out about ‘Talk for Writing’. Parents and carers across the school will also have the chance to enjoy reading a book with their child during the week of World Book Day. Please click on the link below to access our January – June Parental Engagement & Family Learning leaflet:

Jan – June 2024 Family Learning programme

We’re particularly excited about our Parents & Partners Improvement Forum, which will take place on Thursday 18th January. This event will bring together parent/carer representatives from all seven stages (Primary 1 – 7) as well as various partners who contribute to Cathedral pupils’ learning, wellbeing and development. There will be the opportunity for delegates to evaluate Cathedral Primary using four Quality Indicators from ‘How good is our school? 4’ and then contribute to identifying and developing priorities for the 2024/25 School Improvement Plan. PLEASE NOTE SPACES FOR THIS EVENT ARE VERY LIMITED (8 PARENTS PER STAGE) AND MUST BE BOOKED IN ADVANCE VIA THE LINK WHICH WILL BE SENT OUT THIS WEEK.

Pupils, staff, families and parishioners celebrated Education Sunday at the vigil Mass in St Luke’s on Saturday 18th and the morning Mass in OLGA Cathedral on Sunday 19th November. Cathedral pupils led the bidding prayers and offertory and senior pupils from Our Lady’s High School the readings and Catholic Education Week address.

Across our schools and parishes, we celebrate and give thanks for the precious gift of Catholic Education which seeks to develop and nurture the whole person, build a community between home, school and parish and continue the Church’s mission of calling young people to discover and enter into a living relationship with Jesus Christ.

The four schools which make up Our Lady’s Cluster have put together an electronic newsletter for Catholic Education Week, which can be accessed via the link below.

Catholic Education Week 2023 – OLHS Cluster Newsletter

The purpose of Catholic Education Week is to highlight the significance of Catholic education, not only for young people but for society as a whole.  Students, parents, teachers and others …

Go to this Sway

An array of Viking warriors and Viking gods took to the stage on Friday 17th November for the Primary 3 Learning Showcase. The boys and girls took their audience on an exciting historical journey, filled with fascinating facts about Viking daily life, jobs, clothes, trading, invasions and beliefs. The children sprinkled in some humour when they articulated their Viking skills, which included raiding and pillaging, and also took to the catwalk for a Viking fashion show! Primary 3’s showcase finished with a rousing song, ‘Vikings Rock’, which got the entire audience clapping along.

Well done to the boys and girls for showcasing their learning in such a creative and engaging way and to Mrs Loose, Mrs Callaghan and Mrs Carroll for all their hard work preparing the children for their special performance.

Our Play Zone was a hive of activity on Thursday 16th November for the second day of play Family Learning, this time for our Primary 2 classes. Once again, Mr Young began each individual class’s session with a presentation on Cathedral’s approach to play and then parents and carers had the opportunity to visit the Play Zone and learn alongside their child.

Feedback from parents was exceptionally positive:

“Jade loves the creative station. She loves to make different things from various materials.”

“Great way to learn skills for the future.”

“Fantastic… really informative and it’s great to see how Matthew learns and enjoys different elements of play.”

“It allows Harry to express himself and understand through creativity how the world works.”