BlueCoat Primary School News

As national performance tables become available for the public to peruse, it's notable that Blue Coat appears prominently for both pupil attainment and progress.

With the ability to compare schools within the Local Authority, the tables show that a highly significant 89% of Blue Coat's Year 6 pupils achieved the Expected Standard in Reading, Writing and Maths last summer. This ranks our school as ninth in Gloucestershire. Furthermore, only 2 similarly-sized schools sit above Blue Coat, with the others having far smaller pupil populations.

We're really proud of the independence of our learners - none more so than when children reach Milepost 3 in our school. Using their own initiatives and ideas, our eldest pupils organised their own fundraiser at break time today for this all-important charity.

Nerf gun shoot-em-downs, guess the number of sweets, bookmark-making, popcorn selling, cake bakes and so much more was all on show for children to take part in or feast on. Of course, all proceeds will be pumped back in to Children In Need. 

On Friday 2^nd November, all pupils and staff took part in a Forest School extravaganza to celebrate 10 years of Forest School delivery.

The special event was supported by a grant from The Ernest Cook Trust.

All classes joined together on the school field for a whole day of ‘learning outside the classroom’, Forest School and play. There were over 20 activities to take part in and the children got to choose what they took part in and when, giving them lots of freedom throughout the day. The event was held as part of the international ‘Outdoor Classroom day’ initiative, with over 3.5 million children taking part around the world.

With rapid developments in mobile technology, gaming and apps, the sad reality is that your child is more vulnerable online now than ever before.

The National Online Safety campaign raises the issue of online grooming, raising parental awareness and offering advice on what parents should do to support their child in leading digitally safe lives.

As a school, we ensure all children receive e-safety teaching appropriate to their age and discuss what safety looks like online.

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!