Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School

Primary 5 pupils took to the stage on Friday 25th November for a fantastic Learning Showcase all about their class topic on Germany. There was barely an area of the curriculum left out of the children’s showcase, with geography, history, drama, music, dance, PE and technology all making an appearance in the vibrant presentation. There was even a countdown in German and a mention of pretzel making in class! The finale of the showcase featured Gabriel (Primary 5b) performing a convincing reenactment of the moment back on 31st December 1989 when David Hasselhoff sang “Looking for Freedom” to a crowd at the Berlin Wall.

Well done to each and every one of our Primary 5 pupils for their outstanding performance and many thanks to Mrs Devanney, Miss Tyrell and Mrs Hamilton for all their hard work getting the children ready for the day.

Many congratulations to those Primary 6 pupils who were successful in their interviews to become Nursery Buddies. Our fabulous children responded to Mrs Duffy’s job advert, completed an application form and went though a rigorous interview. 

Successful applicants graduated from Buddy Training School on Friday 25th November and will now sign their contracts and begin on the Buddy Shift Rota.

The standard of application was exceptionally high and a wonderful opportunity to develop the workforce of the future in Cathedral Primary School.

Mr Young did a double take this week when he walked past the newspaper stand at the back of the church. Much to his surprise, a Primary 7 Cathedral pupil was looking back at him from the front cover of the latest edition of The Scottish Catholic! As you may have read in a newsfeed posted a number of weeks ago, Cathedral Primary was chosen for this year’s Catholic Education Week photoshoot and it was one of these photos used on the cover of the magazine.

To mark Catholic Education Week, the latest edition of The Scottish Catholic has been edited by Catholic school pupils, asking the question ‘What is our future?’ and how various current issues might impact on young people. Articles include an interesting piece on Brother Walfrid, the Marist Brother who founded Celtic Football Club.

Three more House Captains visited Our Lady’s High School on Wednesday 23rd November to continue work on our special Smart Schools Council suggestions box. With the support of OLHS staff, the children made excellent progress and the box is now only one more session away from being finished.

We look forward to seeing lots of great suggestions from pupils appearing in the box next term to help us drive forward improvement in Cathedral Primary.

Over half of the Cathedral pupils participating in the North Lanarkshire Active Schools Cross Country trials on Thursday 17th November qualified for the next event. Congratulations to all pupils who took part and many thanks to Mrs Tominey and Mrs Murphy (Nursery) for coaching our cross country team.

Primary 7 hosted a very successful coffee morning on Friday 18th November, raising a fantastic £938.32 for school funds. This money will go directly towards subsidising the Primary 7 residential trip to Lendrick Muir later in the year.

Many thanks to Primary 7 pupils and their teachers, and to the Fundraising Committee, for coordinating the event.

Recently, our twelve House Captains, who also serve as the Communications Team for our Smart School Council, came up with the proposal of having a suggestions box to gather Cathedral pupils’ ideas for improving our school. Of course, here at Cathedral, we never settle for anything but the absolute best, so Mrs Duffy liaised with the Technical Department at Our Lady’s High School to arrange for our House Captains to visit the school over a three week period to build a wooden suggestions box.

Three of our Captains got off to a great start on Tuesday 15th November and we look forward to the suggestions box taking pride of place in Cathedral Primary in a few weeks’ time.

As mentioned on the newsfeed several weeks ago, three of our House Captains visited Scotia Books recently to select and purchase new books for those pupils ready to begin Level 2 of our Accelerated Reader programme. With the shelves of our main library already full, a new Level 2 library has been created in the adjacent open area.

Pupils have already started to enjoy the new books and will be able to complete an Accelerated Reader quiz on completion of each text.

The photograph above shows one of our ‘Reading Together’ parents, Mrs McInnes, enjoying a book with two avid Cathedral readers. Information on joining our ‘Reading Together’ team will be sent out by Mrs Duffy in due course.

As part of our Ca-Fi Connections initiative, staff from across the campus (Cathedral Primary, Cathedral Nursery, Firkpark Primary and Clydeview Primary) came together on Monday 14th November for ‘Campus Cuppa’. This was simply an opportunity for teaching, support and clerical staff from across the entire campus to get to know one another better over a cup of tea and slice of cake. There was a fantastic buzz around the gym hall, with many people meeting for the very first time.

As mentioned in previous newsfeeds, Cathedral and Firpark pupils have already had the opportunity to tour each other’s schools (Cathedral pupils are very jealous of Firpark’s swimming pool!) and, in the coming months, the children will have the opportunity to learn together in their stage groups.

Many thanks to Miss Cawley (PT, Cathedral) and Mrs McGuire (PT, Firpark) for organising and coordinating the event.

This week at nursery, the children have been enjoying the song of the week, ‘The Big Ship Sails On The Alley Alley-Oh’. This song has sparked lots of interest and discussions about pirates. Through responsive planning, the children have participated in a wide variety of pirate-themed experiences both indoors and outdoors.  The children have been making treasure maps and writing pirate words in the literacy area.  Within the expressive arts area, the children have created their own ships, hiding treasure using playdough and sand and learning about what lives in the ocean.  Within the STEM area, the children have been very busy designing and building their own pirate ships and role playing as pirates.  Outdoors, the children have had the opportunity to fly kites and participate in cannonball target practice! Whilst the children have been enjoying a healthy snack, they have been discussing Pirate Pete, his dog, Strawberry, and the foods they think pirates would eat. The children have then recorded this information in a floor book.