BlueCoat Primary School News

Last Wednesday, Blue Coat key stage 2 pupils took to the KLB sports field determined to win their races during an evening of district athletics. Races ranged from 400m through to sack races and relays. It was an evening of non-stop track events that saw us compete against other local 'large schools' of Wickwar (Alexander Hosea) Primary School and The British School.

The morning's sun-baked affair was followed by a sizzling Key Stage 1 take on Sports Day. The key focus here is on the children feeling competent and confident to try a broad range of activities and to challenge themselves to persevere.

Blue Coat Sports Day this year was blessed with the presence of the Sun - and what a difference it made to the atmosphere! Following the school's traditional format of a team carousel points accumulator and then a series of competitive races, the morning meant that no one was sat still as a spectator for long.

Last Thursday a team of Milepost 3 Blue Coat archers were selected to take part in the District heat of an archery competition held at KLB.

Many had never set their hands on a bow before let alone fired one! Nonetheless, we pride ourselves in resilient and resourceful learners at Blue Coat and it didn't take long for many to hit the central regions of the target board.

Our child musicians, Mrs Galvin and Mrs Moir held a well-attended Easter concert for parents in the school hall last night. Following on from previous years' formats, it was a casual 'drop-in-drop-out' affair with the added drawcard of samples from Key Stage 2 home learning also being on display around the hall.

This week, 2 of our pupils represented the school proudly at the multi-school K'NEX finals held at GE Aviation in Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham.

Having made it through the school's heat (battling off other Year 5's at Blue Coat) our 2 finalists were tasked with the challenge of making a functioning piece of gym equipment that would inspire children to live healthier lifestyles. Each team had only an hour to decide and make, from K'Nex construction, their idea with the criterion of it also featuring a moving mechanism.

This weekend saw a number of our pupils taking part in a tag rugby tournament representing the school. The team was a credit to the school: encouraging one another whilst playing superb rugby in the process.

They had an inspired run at winning the tournament with a 6-2 win over Slimbridge, 7-4 win over Sharpness, a 5-3 defeat over Hillesley and a 7-5 winning result over local neighbours North Nibley. These results defined their path to the final where they managed to come unstuck against a strong Kingswood side who pipped them by one try to win 4-5.

There's little point in promoting a set of core values without discovering whether they are actually have any kind of impact. The recent request for parents to fill out and send in
'R-E-S-P-E-C-T - find out what it means to me!' vouchers was a plea to see whether what we're doing in school, in terms of our core Christian values, is having an effect on how children live their lives more widely. Of course, the school never works in isolation and parents who share and promote these values in partnership with the school can make all the difference. And this was one of the principal intentions of the vouchers - offering a moment where parents can reflect and be proud of the young people they are bringing up!

Today we'll try to cover an update on the action surrounding Sport Relief in school. There's plenty of activities planned by staff and pupils and it looks to be a promising day for fundraising whilst we have plenty of fun engaging in sport.

Some of the highlights then...

This week has seen a number of teams from across Key Stage 2 proudly representing the school in both a competitive hockey and girls' football tournament.