Scottish Catholic Observer

STAFF and pupils of Our Lady of the Annunciation Primary School in Merrylee, Glasgow, joined together to celebrate the school’s Diamond Jubilee.

First known as Friarton primary school, it opened its doors in 1956 to 73 students with Mary Cairney as headteacher, and served Holy Cross and St Mirren’s parishes, becoming Our Lady of the Annunciation Primary School in 1969.

The school has since added an annexe and now teaches more than 200 pupils, with 11 teachers.

To mark the school’s milestone, pupils have been learning about how life is different today compared to life across the years since the school opened, as well as planting bulbs around the Diamond Jubilee tree, making a mosaic of the school’s emblem, and adding their names to a work of art created by former teacher Michael Chromy.

Pupils past and present, along with parents, staff, local councillors, education services and other community groups, also took part in a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow in St Gabriel’s Church on November 24—a parish with which the school has maintained a close relationship over the years.

One of the parents, Claire Semple, opened the Mass with a Gaelic Blessing, while the school choirs from both Our Lady of the Annunciation and Holyrood Secondary provided uplifting music.

Concelebrating at the Mas were parish priest Fr Michael Woodford and Fr Brian McNaught, while pupils took roles in the Mass, contributing to the offertory procession and altar serving, providing music and reading the bidding prayers.

Tea was served afterwards in the primary school, where pupils sang songs for guests from across the decades since the school opened

—This story ran in full in the December 2 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.