Our next round of Family Learning workshops got underway on Tuesday 7th March, focusing on Primary 1 – 3 Literacy.
Mr Young opened the workshop by talking about Cathedral Primary’s holistic approach to Literacy:
- a rigorous synthetic phonics programme to give children the tools they need to read and write
- the use of decodable reading books during phonics lessons to give children instant success and build their confidence
- exposure to non-decodable reading books to develop vocabulary and comprehension
- access to ‘real’ books through regular visits to the school library
- daily opportunities for the children to apply their phonics and reading in meaningful ways across the curriculum
The remainder of the workshop was led by Mrs McCoy who gave a presentation on ‘Read Write Inc. Phonics’, followed by a live phonics lesson with a group of Primary 1 pupils. The children were absolute superstars and parents and carers were blown away by the model lesson!
The session finished with parents working alongside their child on some literacy activities in their classroom.
“Amazing! The progress in such a short space of time is nothing short of phenomenal.” (P1 parent)
“My child talks about ‘special friends’ a lot… now I understand what he means!” (P1 parent)
“We think it’s a great way of learning. Our daughter has progressed amazingly well using Read Write Inc Phonics.” (P2 parent)
“Today’s workshop will assist parents with home learning.” (P2 parent)
One of our Primary 6 pupils will be heading off to Portugal on 8th March to represent the Scottish Gymnastics Club in an international competition. The event, which will last for six days, will see our young gymnast compete against participants from a number of countries including Ukraine, USA and Australia in tempo, balance and combined gymnastics.
The latest ‘Spotlight this month’ to appear in our school library focuses on fiction which features animals amongst the characters. Many thanks,
once again, to Mrs Mellon for creating such an eye-catching display.
As part of our Ca-Fi Connections programme, Cathedral pupils from Primary 3a worked with pupils from Room 4 and Room 6 at Firpark Primary to design a garden for the Keep Scotland Beautiful Pocket Garden Design Competition. The children decided to celebrate medicine and our amazing NHS in their design and are absolutely thrilled that their garden has been selected as one of the winners.
warmest congratulations to your talented pupils.
Thirteen Cathedral pupils participated in the North Lanarkshire cross country finals at Wishaw Sports Centre on Thursday 2nd March. By the end of the event, Cathedral had come out on top with 1st in the Primary 7 boys category, 1st in the Primary 6 boys category and 2nd in the Primary 7 girls category. What an incredible result! 
World Book Day took place on Thursday 2nd March and a variety of book-related activities took place in classes throughout the school. As part of
the day’s events, Mr Young read a short story called ‘The Princess in the Tower Block’ to the whole school over the tannoy.
Cathedral Primary is currently working with ‘Respect Me’, Scotland’s anti-bullying service, to review and refresh the curriculum, procedures and systems the school has in place to prevent, respond to and reduce bullying behaviour. As part of this development work, two Cathedral House Captains led the teachers’ staff meeting on Monday 27th February.
Two Cathedral football teams excelled in a North Lanarkshire tournament on Friday 24th
The area behind the stage has been transformed into a temporary oratory for the Season of Lent.
The overall 2022/23 attendance rate for Cathedral Primary is currently 91.84%, well below pre-COVID levels (the school’s 2018/19 attendance rate, for example, was 93.5%). Although 91.84% might sound high, it actually equates to a pupil missing 16 school days, or over three school weeks, across a year!