BlueCoat Primary School News

Many of the pupils at Blue Coat have excellent opportunities with PE and Sport at school. Not only do we have teaching expertise at hand but we also have Mrs Dixon who coaches the teachers to develop their teaching skills in this subject further.

The school takes part in a very high percentage of local and regional competitions and experiences notable success in them. We also offer a wide range of after-school clubs that range from judo through to archery. 

However, each year, Sports Day is an opportunity for everyone to take part in competitive sport and rally for their respective house team. This year was no different. Following the success of the Key Stage 1 event previously, Key Stage 2 took to the field to earn points for their house teams in a combination of team field events and more traditional track races.

100 pupils, family members and friends joined us for our Playing Out session, where the Blue Coat staff car park and driveway were closed to cars and open for play.

This event was inspired by the Playing Out street-play movement, which started in Bristol and has now gained momentum and recognition nationally. The idea is to (temporarily) reclaim residential roads for communities to come together and play and socialise safely. If you are interested in holding your own Playing Out event see their website: http://playingout.net/ 

What a fantastic weekend for our first Big Build event!
Working in a new partnership with the master builders from Woodland Tribe and supported by a Tesco Bags of Help grant, 150 children and adults from the Blue Coat community came together to create a giant adventure play sculpture.

Armed with hammers, saws and nails (and the occasional impact driver) and with a healthy dollop of imagination, enthusiam, creativity and energy, the team worked together to reimagine and reshape a huge pile of loose scrap wood and co-create a unique play ark. It had several names throughout the process but I think we settled on the ss Great Blue Banana!

This weekend, around 90 parents and pupils descended upon the school field  for a Play and Wildlife flowers event. Intended to be a relaxed occasion to enjoy the school field and its play opportunities, families took to planting a wildflower labyrinth (to accompany our daffodil one!) whilst finding an excuse to have fun in the Blue Coat play beach, dengineering zone, the slack line, and accompanying areas. There was even time to have fun with bubbles, clay... and biscuits with hot chocolate!

Each year, the Bishop's Visitor (Mrs Butler) visits our school to identify and celebrate the ways in which the school is developing its (Christian) ethos. This usually results in a visit that tries to take in a number of aspects of school life to give as wide a perspective as possible.

The recent visit saw Mrs Butler experience lunchtime (Platinum!) play at Blue Coat, visit Religious Education lessons in both Key Stages, attend collective worship and the 'Ignite' after-school club, as well as meeting to talk with school leaders.

Our playground has been a very busy place over the past 24 hours. We've not only had Christmas trees being festively dressed by the children... we've also had a visit from the big man himself!

Children were overjoyed that the PTA helpers (- thank you!) had managed to lasso Santa from his busy duties abroad to pay Blue Coat pupils a visit. They even managed some early unwrapping to try out their new gifts - fancy play equipment for break times!

As we live out the last days of 2017 in school, there's still time to show the contrast in life at school...

On one hand, the children (with weliies in school) have been outside enjoying the weather on our school field, feeling the crunch of snow under their feet.

Whereas in school, the milepost 2 children led their own spiritual service for Christingle in the school hall. Classes from across the school visited throughout the afternoon and soaked up the atmosphere to remember the essence of our celebrations in school.

We are pleased to announce that Blue Coat is through to the voting stage for 2 funded projects for outdoor play, and so we're asking for your support

1. The Big Build - Tesco Bags of Help
2. Healthy Hearts through Active Play - Aviva Community Fund

Here are the details:

Earlier in the term, such is Blue Coat tradition, we formally welcomed new Reception pupils (and parents) into the school family by means of a service at St Mary's church.

Always promised to be a special occasion, the event also served to cement the  special bond between Reception children and their Year 6 buddy/buddies. To symbolise this the Year 6's all presented their buddy with a bespoke painted pebble that they had prepared for them. This was ceremoniously placed around the school's Holy Candle to remind us of our responsibilities to live out our core Christian values for the sake of all, but especially to the benefit of the youngest members of our school family.

We were, once again, encouraged by the support for what is now our annual Maths meeting for parents. 'Masters of Maths' sets out to uncover the thinking behind the new maths curriculum, its implications for our learners, what the school is doing about it, and how parents can support.

Mathematics is a rapidly evolving subject at Blue Coat and we have taken several very significant steps already this year in training our teaching staff to meet the challenges of nurturing future ready mathematical thinkers in our classes.