Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

A number of visitors descended on Cathedral Primary on Friday 17th September for a photoshoot in advance of this year’s Catholic Education Week, which takes place in November.

Ten Cathedral pupils, along with Fr Mark, Mr Young and Mrs Carroll, our RE Co-ordinator, were joined by Barbara Coupar (Director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service) Louise Elliot (also from SCES) and Claire O’Neill (RE Advisor for the Diocese of Motherwell) for the publicity event. Paul Sherry took the photographs and these will be used to promote this year’s Catholic Education Week across Scotland.

Friday 16th September saw over two hundred family members fill Cathedral Primary dining hall for the first coffee morning of the year. The event was organised and coordinated by Primary 6 pupils and the boys and girls made sure every one of the guests was well looked after. As always, the raffle was very popular, with a huge array of prizes kindly donated for the event.

An incredible £1108 was raised for school funds and the money will be used to support and enhance the children’s learning experiences over the coming months.

A huge thank you to the Fundraising Committee for organising and setting up the event. Cathedral school community is very fortunate to have you!

We look forward to next term’s coffee morning which takes place on Friday 18th November.

As part of our ‘Ca-Fi Connections’ programme, pupils from Firpark and Cathedral Primaries are getting the opportunity to enjoy a guided tour of the other school they share the campus with. This is a great way for the children to meet each other and begin to forge new friendships. It’s good to know that Mrs Webster and Mr Young, the Head Teachers from the two schools, aren’t missing out: they have their very own school tours organised for next week!

Lynda Keith, an educational consultant with a specialism in mathematics and early years education, was back in Cathedral on Thursday 8th September. Lynda modelled a play-based lesson in Primary 2a, engaged in professional dialogue with infant staff and then worked with the leadership team to write the next part of ‘Actve8: Let’s Play’, a bespoke document which will help Cathedral staff deliver play-based learning in their classrooms.

Lynda worked with Primary 7a in the afternoon on developing a ‘Publication Station’ in their learning street and also did a learning walk in the nursery to provide some input on how the playroom could be further developed. Lynda rounded off the day by joining our staff meeting, where Cathedral teachers received their next part of ‘Talk for Writing’ training from Miss Cameron.

Now that we are at a different stage of the pandemic, Cathedral Primary & Nursery Class are committed to being outward looking: learning from what’s happening elsewhere to challenge our own thinking. As well as Cathedral staff visiting other schools, an important part of looking outwards is opening the doors of the school to people who can see things with a fresh pair of eyes. We look forward to continuing to work with Lynda in the coming months.

Our School Improvement Plan for 2022/23 can be accessed by clicking on the link below:

Cathedral Primary & Nursery SIP 2022-23

We have three school priorities for the year ahead, along with a cluster and a Nursery priority.

Cluster Priority: To ensure equity for all learners & improve attainment.

School Priority 1: Raise attainment in writing across all stages through a review and refresh of teaching approaches.

School Priority 2: Raise attainment in reading by developing and embedding a culture of Reading for Enjoyment across all stages, reinforced by the use of ‘Accelerated Reader’.

School Priority 3: Establish a digital pedagogy across all stages of the curriculum which engages learners and delivers a high-quality learning experience for all pupils.

Nursery Priority: Raise attainment in writing through the introduction and embedding of ‘Talk for Writing’ approaches, underpinned by a culture of reading for enjoyment.

It’s been great to see our returning children take on the responsibility of being buddies to our new children and supporting them to settle in. They are proudly wearing their buddy badges as they go about their nursery day!

Our new children are starting to settle into the routine and are choosing to explore indoors and outdoors making choices to learn new things.  Our focus is all about building friendships, caring for others and sharing… all aimed at supporting our new-starts to respect others and the nursery toys and resources. This focus will continue over the next few weeks as the transition from home to nursery continues.

As a special thank you for getting the new school year off to such a fantastic start, Cathedral pupils and staff were treated to a special performance of ‘The Jungle Book’ on Thursday 25th August. M&M productions transported the children to a far off land, introducing them to Mowgli, Baloo, Shere Khan and other characters from Rudyard Kipling’s famous book.

A fantastic afternoon was had by all and, as always, Cathedral pupils behaved impeccably and participated with huge enthusiasm.

73 very eager and enthusiastic new Primary 1 pupils joined the Cathedral Primary family on Wednesday 15th August. The boys and girls have settled into school life exceptionally well and their learning in mathematics, literacy and all other areas of the curriculum is already well underway. Mrs Gillespie (P1a), Mrs Laird (P1b) and Miss Forsyth (P1c) are very impressed indeed and Mr Young is so proud of each and every one of them! Well done, boys and girls!