Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Cathedral Primary was a hive of activity on Thursday 29th August for ‘Meet the Teacher’. Pupils had the chance to show their parents/carers their classroom and learning street, and parents/carers had the opportunity to meet their child’s teacher.

John McGarry and Jean Guy from the North Lanarkshire Tackling Poverty Team were also in attendance to sign-post families to  various financial support:

https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/benefits-and-money/welfare-rights-services

We look forward to welcoming parents and carers to our numerous events throughout the course of the year. The next scheduled event is Mass for the Feast of Our Lady’s Birthday. This will be led by Primary 5 pupils and takes place on Friday 6th September at 1.45pm.

I ENJOY EATING A DIVERSITY OF FOODS IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS HWB 0-29a

I AM AWARE OF HOW FRIENDSHIPS ARE FORMED HWB 0-44a

The children at Cathedral Nursery Class have been getting into the routine of visiting Cathedral Café in the mornings for self-serving breakfast and then rolling lunches. Our young learners have been setting the tables, identifying good hygiene and role modelling to the new children starting at Cathedral nursery.

We have welcomed some new children to our nursery and our returning children have helped them to settle in and build new, safe and secure relationships.

Staff have introduced a self-registration board for the children to identify their own photograph and name which matches to their keyworker’s group, helping develop independence and a sense of belonging within our nursery environment.

Our first Smart School Council theme of the session is Our Learning & Teaching and, at their Smart School Council class meetings on Monday 26th August, pupils across the school were asked ‘What are the top five things which make your learning enjoyable and challenging?’.

House Captains met on Wednesday 28th August to discuss the results and update our Action Board which helps Cathedral continually drive forward change and improvement for all of our learners. Based on the feedback from our twenty class meetings, House Captains agreed on three mini projects:

• Cathedral’s learners’ various ‘top fives’ will be collated onto a poster by our Communications Team to share results with teachers and provide a visual for pupils in learning spaces;
• From Monday 2nd September, pupils will take responsibility for weekly stock-checks of resources in learning spaces;
• House Captains, along with Mr Young and Mrs Duffy, will carry out a learning walk of all four learning streets to identify further improvements which could me made

Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) is money given to Cathedral Primary School by the Scottish Government each year to help us provide the best possible opportunities for our young learners. In particular, it is there to help the school support children who experience barriers to learning and who might be falling behind or not getting the same chances in their education because their family is experiencing poverty or other financial difficulties.

There is quite a lot of flexibility in how schools can use their Pupil Equity Fund allocation, as long as it is used in ways which have been proven to help improve outcomes for children and young people who are affected by poverty. Please click on the link below to access a poster showing how Cathedral Primary has used its Pupil Equity Fund allocation in recent years and the difference this has made to our learners.   You’ll instantly see how PEF has benefited your child!

PEF overview

Further information is available on the Pupil Equity Fund page of our school website:

Pupil Equity Fund

Mrs Duffy conducted interviews with our twelve House Captains on Tuesday 27th August in order to allocate their different Smart School Council Communication Team roles:

• Progress updater
• Question finder
• Assembly coordinator
• Class meeting tool leader
• Poster maker
• Staff liaison officer

As you will have read in a previous newsfeed, our first Smart School Council meetings took place on Monday 26th August and our highly-committed House Captains are very excited about leading further change and improvement in Cathedral Primary throughout the course of the year.

Smart School Council gives every Cathedral pupil a voice and is key to driving forward change and improvement across our school community. The first class meetings of the year took place on Monday 26th August and Cathedral learners were asked a question linked to Priority 1 of our 2024/25 School Improvement Plan:

‘What are the top five things that make your learning enjoyable and challenging?’

House Captains will gather and collate feedback from the twenty separate class meetings before populating our Smart School Council action board. Watch this space!

You can find out more about Smart School Council by clicking on the link below:

Smart School Council | (glowscotland.org.uk)

Campus Council gathered for their opening meeting of the year on Monday 26th August. The children from the three schools took some time to get to know one another before discussing and planning our first 2024/25 Campus Connections learning activity: a joint Cathedral – Firpark – Clydeview art project! School tours have also been arranged for any new pupils across the three schools.

Campus Connections is co-ordinated and overseen by Miss Cawley (Principal Teacher, Cathedral Primary School) and Mr Cotter (Depute Head Teacher, Firkpark & Clydeview Primary Schools). Further information about this important aspect of the life and work of our school is available via the link below:

Campus Connections | (glowscotland.org.uk)

Every change and improvement we make in Cathedral is ultimately about improving outcomes for pupils, so it’s vital our young learners are directly involved in the school’s ongoing improvement process. Pupils had the opportunity to explore Cathedral’s 2024/25 improvement priorities at our whole-school assembly on Monday 26th August and then began to take them forward immediately afterwards during our first Smart School Council class meetings of the year.

We have three school priorities this year and these have been put into child-friendly language to make them accessible to learners:

• My teacher will help me reach my full potential by giving me daily access to the very best learning spaces, learning experiences and learning interactions.
• My teacher will teach inspiring RE lessons which help me grow in my faith and equip me to make a positive difference in school, at home, in my parish and in the local and global community.
• My teacher will help me to develop my digital technology skills and give me opportunities to use these in my learning in every area of the curriculum.

Our pupil Improvement Plan poster and Cathedral’s 2024/25 Annual Improvement Plan can be accessed via the links below:

Pupil SIP 2024-25

24.25 Cathedral PS AIP

You may also be interested in the School Improvement page of our website, which includes an overview of improvement priorities from September 2020 to June 2024.

School Improvement Plan overview

Priority 2 in this year’s Annual Improvement Plan is: ‘Improve the quality and increase the impact of Religious Education RC across all stages through a systematic and active review of the ten characteristics in the Charter for Catholic Schools in Scotland.’

A vital way our school community will take forward this aspect of our Improvement Plan is by adopting a more formal approach to pupils promoting and leading the Catholic dimension of our school which, as outlined in Cathedral’s mission statement, places Christ and Our Lady at the centre.

Following the submission of applications from Primary 5 – 7 pupils, a Junior Chaplaincy Team (known as IGNITE) has been established and our sixteen new Pupil Chaplains met for the first time on Friday 23rd August. The team’s mission, under the leadership of Mrs Carroll, is to spark faith and devotion in both pupils and staff. Our Pupil Chaplains will be officially commissioned by Fr Lamb at the Primary 1 Welcome Mass on Thursday 26th September.

Please click on the link below and take a few moments to find out more about IGNITE, including their plans for the year ahead.

IGNITE Junior Chaplaincy Team | (glowscotland.org.uk)

The National Schools Singing Programme, funded by Motherwell Diocese, got back up and running on Thursday 22nd August. Mr James Greechan, NSSP Choral Director, met our new Primary 4 pupils for the first time and the boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed the various songs and interactive music activities. Mr Greechan also began auditions for the choir. Given we have 89 Primary 5 pupils this year, competition for a place in Cathedral’s distinguished choir is going to be very tough indeed!

You can find out more about the programme on the NSSP website:

Where We’ve Funded | National Schools Singing Programme (nssp.org.uk)