Life at The Blue Coat School is fun! We have a rich curriculum that deliberately encourages our children to question and to challenge the status quo. Whether it is the outdoor experience of our Forest School or a STEAM project which combines artistic flair and mathematical thinking; whether it is performing on the stage or arriving in School for early morning cross-country; it is our aim to provide an environment of limitless learning for our pupils.

In the words of a Blue Coat parent, our children benefit from, “extensive exposure to extracurricular activity without losing focus on academic rigour.”

Indeed, pupils consistently achieve outstanding results and they are well prepared for senior school entrance examinations. Many progress with the top scholarship offers to the region’s most renowned senior schools including the Independent and Grammar Schools of the King Edward VI Foundation, Solihull School, Edgbaston High School for Girls and Bromsgrove School. Others progress to schools across the country including Cheltenham College and Wycombe Abbey, as well as 13+ entry to the likes of Repton School and Eton College.

The Class of 2022 received an impressive 204 offers to Independent Senior Schools as well as an outstanding 82 offers for Grammar Schools. In addition, 69 children were awarded 79 scholarships to independent schools both within the region and beyond. Scholarships for academic achievement were in abundance and there were also numerous awards recognising the talents of BCS pupils in sport, music and the performing arts.

• 2020-2021 Results
• 2019-2020 Results
• 2018-2019 Results
• 2017-2018 Results
• 2016-2017 Results

We look forward to helping you find a place for your child at The Blue Coat School. Our Admissions Registrar will be able to advise you on the current availability of places and how to register your child.

It is never too early to apply! Our places to join at 3 years (our first entry point) fill extremely quickly so we we recommend applying within the first month of birth.

If you are unable to secure a place to join at 3 years, you may wish to apply for admission at age 7 to Prep in Year 3.  We hold an Entrance Test Day and interview in February each year. Scholarships worth 25% of fees and Means-tested Bursaries are also available.

If vacancies arise outside of the formal entry points then we are able to carry out individual academic assessment or offer taster mornings depending on your child’s age. Our Admissions Registrar can advise you further.

You are warmly invited to attend an Open Morning to visit Blue Coat. Our pupils act as tour guides and can therefore tell you first hand all about Blue Coat life. Alternatively, you are welcome to contact the Admissions Registrar to arrange a personal visit on a weekday.

Our Admissions Policy, Parent and Pupil Privacy Notices and School Terms and Conditions can be found under the School Policies section.

ROUTINES

The children have a morning snack and a hot lunch is served in the Nursery Dining Room. We have a simplified version of the school lunches. A wide range of diets are catered for, please talk to us about your child’s requirements.

NURSERY PLACES

Places for our Nursery fill very quickly and we advise you to register not long after your child has been born. Priority is given to siblings of current pupils if they have registered within the first 1 month of birth. Places are allocated approximately one year in advance of entry. Parents and children are invited in for a ‘Stay and Play’ and to meet with the Head of Pre-Prep or a member of the Senior Leadership Team before a formal offer is made.

From an early age we want to foster a love of learning and enquiry. In the Pre-Prep Department we encourage your child’s talents to flourish as their personality develops. Our staff provide a valuable link between school and home. We look forward to sharing each precious milestone and achievement with you.

Throughout each day, there are opportunities a-plenty – nurturing language skills and social skills, as well as physical development. We are extremely proud of our outstanding facilities. Right down to our youngest child in nursery, everyone benefits from these wonderful resources.

Turning 7 years means an opportunity to welcome more children to The Blue Coat School, as we move from three-form to four-form entry. An Entrance Test is held at the beginning of February and scholarships recognising academic and musical talent are offered, as well as financial assistance with fees.

A House system is introduced in Year 3 and the children are assigned to a House at their very own ‘Sorting Day’. There is always a great deal of anticipation on whether they will join St. George’s, St. Philip’s, St. Monica’s or a St. Margaret’s! A competitive House Competition programme ensures that the children work as a team to earn House points or compete for their House in sport, general knowledge quizzes and a House Shout.

Prep is an exciting time, the children grow in independence and begin to move around the campus for lessons. They benefit from specialist facilities including the ICT Suite, Music Centre, Creative Arts Studio and Science Laboratory.

Friday afternoon signals time for TED (Thinking, Exploring and Doing). Activities include debating, cooking and STEM, as well as getting green-fingered in the Blue Coat Garden!

The children tackle a range of exhilarating outdoor activities and develop teamwork and leadership skills on residential trips. Our aim is to nurture a spirit of fun, adventure and curiosity.

Sport is a vital part of Blue Coat life, and we want every pupil to leave The Blue Coat School having enjoyed playing different games, while developing the sporting skills necessary to appreciate the value of ‘sport for life’. This comes through an attitude towards sport which is just as important as ability.

We actively encourage pupils to participate at the best level they can to give them confidence and enthusiasm to have a lifelong love of sport. Our talented and dedicated games staff are committed to providing the best possible environment and coaching to enable each pupil to reach their full potential, as part of a team or as an individual.

During Games lessons, the emphasis is placed on the traditional main team games of rugby, football, cricket, hockey, netball and rounders. All pupils, irrespective of their particular sporting talents, are encouraged to represent the School at either a local, regional or national level. In addition, the opportunity to play for their House in House Matches and at Sports Day always brings out the competitive spirit! Parents are warmly invited to attend and support their child at fixtures.

Swimming plays an important role at The Blue Coat School, with children having the opportunity to enjoy a weekly swimming lesson from Reception upwards in our superb on-site four lane 25 metre facility.

The Blue Coat School has a rich history of swimming achievements competing at both regional and national level including success at the English Schools Swimming Association Championships (ESSA) and Independent Association of Prep Schools (IAPS) National Finals. Locally we enjoy success against other schools.

Our curriculum swimming lessons are fun, engaging and offer our children an opportunity to learn to swim at The Blue Coat School in familiar surroundings.

As they move into Prep, The Blue Coat School offers inter-house swimming galas which are always hotly contested! We also run training sessions for our Performance and Development groups before school.

At The Blue Coat School, we seek to provide an environment safe from criticism, in which your child may explore and develop his/her own creativity.

Many cross-curricular links with other subject areas are also developed to enhance their learning. ICT is embedded in the curriculum and provides the opportunity for research and digital manipulation.

The children benefit from workshops with Artists-in-Residence, such as a landscape architect, graphic designer and sculptor. The children’s work is regularly exhibited at regional and national Art Exhibitions and Competitions.  Pupils also visit the nearby Barber Institute where they can be inspired to consider how talents can take them into Art as a career path.

Blue Coat has always been at the forefront of modern technology. It is our aim to provide the children with an understanding of and an appreciation for the simple, but vital technologies that are a part of everyday life and quite possibly overlooked in our busy urban environment.

The BCS garden and Forest School provide our children with access to the outdoors. They give them the opportunities to explore and experience the natural world in a safe, familiar and easily accessible environment. They love these experiences!

Outdoor Education is a new part of the Blue Coat curriculum and the School has three qualified Forest School Leaders. Opportunities  are offered to the whole school including Nursery, who now have a new venue for their teddy bears’ picnic and other nature excursions.

Year 3 pupils enjoy their first school residential in the familiar setting of Forest School.  The children spend a day enjoying a range of outdoor activities including team games, a ‘night walk’, building bug hotels, making wild bunting and learning knife-skills and how to whittle a piece of wood before a sleepover in the Prep Houses.

In the later years between the ages of 8 and 11 years, the children venture further afield to Wales and Cheshire. There they spend a few days and nights and have the opportunity to ‘be at one’ with nature, to learn how to safely light a fire, receive wilderness first aid training and to have the chance to sleep under the stars.

HISTORY

At The Blue Coat School we aim to foster a love of History by bringing the subject alive through interactive study.  Each topic is introduced with a ‘Wow’ day. These include a visit from a Roman soldier, a caveman and experiencing a day in the life of a typical Tudor.

The children investigate characteristic features of past societies and periods and explore key events in each of these time periods. They learn what life would have been like and compare and contrast this to life today.

During their History lessons, pupils will work with a variety of sources to investigate key events and historical figures and evaluate sources of information and identify those that are useful for particular tasks.

By the end of their time at Blue Coat, the children will have learned about the Romans, the Stone Age, the Victorians, Aztecs, Tudors, Vikings and Anglo Saxons, the Indus Valley, Ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and also World War One.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

The Religious Education curriculum in Prep encompasses the study of the six major world religions with a particular emphasis on Christianity. Pupils learn about and reflect upon the teachings, beliefs, customs, practises and traditions of different religions.

During the lessons the pupils learn through a variety of activities including discussion, debate, role play, ICT activities, a wide variety of writing activities, class assemblies, Art using a variety of media and educational visits.

Religious art forms an exciting part of the curriculum incorporating a cross-curricular Art project in Year 6. The children also study founders of religions and leadership, places of worship, sacred texts, religious festivals and finally, religious ‘big questions’.  This gives the pupils a chance to debate moral and theological issues.

The Blue Coat School promotes respect and understanding of each other’s religions through the RE curriculum.

At The Blue Coat School students learn French for one hour a week from Year 3 to Year 6.  Lessons are designed to be engaging and fun to foster a love of language learning at a young age. Each year several children also participate in the national Junior Language Competition. BCS has strong track record of  pupils successfully qualifying for the semi-final and final rounds, including a past winner in 2016!

To begin with, the learning focus is mainly on oral language; through songs, stories and rhymes, which also allows the children to engage with the cultural differences between the UK and French speaking countries.  There are plenty of opportunities for the children to use IT, and iPads are often used in the classroom to facilitate role plays, games, and recording stories.

As the children progress through Prep they will gradually be using more written language and learning about the different sound and spelling links that exist between English and French.  Skills such as using foreign language and online dictionaries will be honed, as well as practising reading a variety of different texts.

In Year 5 pupils participate in a French penpal exchange. The highlight however is the opportunity to go on a residential school trip to France at the end of Year 6.

At Blue Coat School, we believe that the English language is fundamental to access all curriculum areas for our setting and beyond. Lifelong learning is our vision, through quality first teaching; excellent subject knowledge and high expectation of all pupils. We aim for all pupils to foster a love of reading and writing, through a broad and balanced curriculum.

Reading for pleasure is what we strive for and at The Blue Coat School, we still have a dedicated library session built in to our weekly learning. Rich texts are studied to understand how to develop a writer’s voice. Language choices are examined through texts and passages; learning about grammatical structures and punctuation.

Friday afternoons for Years 5 and 6 are devoted to subjects not traditionally found on the primary school timetable – the objective being to get our children Thinking, Exploring and Doing!  Pupils experience new opportunities and develop their learning outside of traditional academic areas and not surprisingly they love this part of the week. Each term will see further activities with additional squad practices thrown into the mix. With such a varied programme there’s certainly something for everyone!

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), is popular with those of an experimental bent, whilst Mrs Creaton is in the Mock Courtroom listening to the children’s persuasive powers of debating. All of the above come under the title of Thinking.

Anyone wishing to do some Exploring can enter the world of a young journalist in MediaMania and work with a range of cameras, editing equipment and green screen backdrops. Creatively, the children can cook up a storm with Mr Moss in the Blue Coat kitchen, or learn skills of embroidery, knitting and woollen crafts. Outdoor options offer a chance to get ‘hands-on’ in the Blue Coat garden.

The Doing collective hone their sports skills in Rugby, Netball and Hockey in the Michaelmas Term, and later in the year travel to The Priory Club for Squash and Tennis.

Our facilities are worthy of many a senior school, let alone a Prep school! The children and staff benefit from exceptional teaching and learning resources. These include a 25m indoor swimming pool, AstroTurf pitch and cricket nets, Forest School, two brand new science laboratories, IT Suite with recording booth and green screen technology, Music Centre with Apple Macs and composing software, a Creative Arts Studio, Auditorium, School Chapel and extensive playing fields, to name just a few!

Our beautiful and well resourced 15-acre campus enables us to offer over 120 clubs and activities a week, including activities outside of the curriculum such as sailing, golf and tennis. In addition, senior pupils experience cooking, debating, gardening and STEM as part of our Friday afternoon Thinking, Exploring and Doing Programme.

The whole school often gather in the School Hall for assemblies and workshops. This auditorium has retractable seating and its own sound booth and lighting rig. The children have the opportunity to perform in a number of recitals, concerts and drama productions each year in this spacious facility.

Another well-used building is the School Chapel which was consecrated in 1932 shortly after the School moved to its Harborne premises. Families and friends are invited to attend weekly Chapel Service on a Friday morning.

At The Blue Coat School, children are given as many opportunities as possible to develop a broad range of hobbies and interests through our Co-Curricular programme. The School provides a vast range of activities each week, including Coding, Spanish, gymnastics, Art Club, LAMDA, Chess and many more!

We believe that learning does not stop once academic lessons do, and therefore we encourage all children to take part in many different activities throughout their time at Blue Coat. The value of these co-curricular activities is not limited to the skill or knowledge that is being practised but also wider-ranging skills such as cooperation, perseverance, problem-solving and effort are reinforced in co-curricular clubs.

An activity charge is levied when the School needs to employ additional staff to lead a specific activity. Thus, whilst team practices and full orchestral sessions run by our own staff are not charged, other activities such as cricket coaching and judo, taken by external providers, are.

MUSIC GROUPS

Ensembles and groups exist for children to learn to perform music together, enhancing their own listening skills and further developing their individual skills. Groups include: Fiddlesticks, Chamber Choir, Chapel Choir, Flute Choir, Guitar Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, Music Theory, Percussion Group, String Groups, Wind Band, and Year Group Choir.

HOLIDAY CLUBS

A number of external providers offer holiday activities at The Blue Coat School during the school holidays. These are attended by our pupils as well as children from surrounding schools. Please see the links below for further details:

• King’s Camps – holiday club for children aged over five years.
• Aston Villa Football Club
• Complete Cricket
• Diamond Swim Academy

At Blue Coat we offer six scholarships to children joining Year 3 each September. There are four academic awards and two for musical excellence. The reduction of fees is 25% for those in receipt of a scholarship. Both internal and external pupils are eligible for an award.

To be eligible prospective pupils must be registered for entry no later than in  the January of Year 2, before they are due to move up to Year 3.

ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIPS

Four Academic Scholarships are awarded to children who perform particularly well in the 7+ Entrance Test.  There is no need to make a separate application for an academic scholarship – all children who would like to join Year 3 (both internal and external) are automatically considered.

MUSIC SCHOLARSHIPS

Two Music Scholarships are normally awarded each year to pupils joining Year 3. In addition, up to two Music Exhibitions may be awarded to cover the cost of instrumental tuition on one instrument.  Scholarships are only awarded if the child has also met the academic entry requirements of the 7+ Entrance Test.

Music Scholars are expected to have already taken their Grade 2 exam, be working towards doing so, or to be the equivalent standard if they do not take formal music exams on their chosen instrument. They must have been learning their instrument for a minimum of 12 months. Voice may count as an instrument.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to audition. They should prepare one piece on their first instrument or perform two shorter pieces on two instruments. Following this, the Director of Music will hold a sight-reading test of an appropriate standard on the candidate’s first instrument, a series of short aural tests and a discussion of the candidate’s musical interests and experience to date. A confidential written report will also be required from the child’s music teacher.

• Music Scholarship Application Form