The Blue Coat School Faith ~ Vision ~ Nurture
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The Blue Coat School Proud to be p ar t o f The Cr anmer E duca t ion Tr ust Spring Newsletter – March, 2016 Robotic’s Nationals – Design Award Winners Congratulations to our BlueBots! Faith ~ Vision ~ Nurture Dear Parents, Guardians and Carers, This has been a short and very busy term! It is the business term, when students and staff are all focused on the exams to come, and the work that has to be submitted, marked and sometimes improved. Fortunately we haven’t had to contend with much snow (Friday, 4th March presented a few challenges with transport, but the Snow Zone Policy worked well. Thank you for your support), and good progress has been made. The newsletter focuses, as always, on what students have been doing in different areas of the school, and it is staff who generally tell the story. But this year I have asked Rebecca Howarth from Year 7 to introduce the term’s news. As an introduction to Blue Coat, and to all those happy (but possibly slightly apprehensive) Year 6’ers who have just got their letter, it’s a gem! (See below, and thank you). A Term in the Life at Blue Coat - By Rebecca Howarth 7B “When I first came to Blue Coat it was quite a shock. My primary school, St Agnes C of E, was very small with 105 pupils altogether and 15 pupils in Year 6. So coming to Blue Coat, with 249 students just in my year felt scary at first. Still, I was excited too, and two of my friends from Primary, Zoe and Sadie, were in my Form. Friends I had known out of primary school, such as Esther and Naomi, also came to Blue Coat. Soon I had made friends with some girls in my Form and loads of people in my classes. Before long, after school I was meeting up with a few friends and walking through the gates with them. I still do now with Zoe, Esther, Becca, Izzy and Casey. Before I came here, I imagined that all the classes would be extremely difficult, although I’d found lessons fine in primary. Actually though, the lessons are great and I like challenging myself with things I haven’t tried before. I can manage the homework I’ve been getting and bringing the right books for the right lessons in the day. My favourites are English and Drama, as they always have been, but I enjoy doing the things I wasn’t taught in primary school, like Food and Textiles. At break I usually go to the library with my friend Harriet, although sometimes I stay on the back pitch and talk with the friends I walk home with. The school restaurant is a perfect meeting place for my friends and me at the start of the day, not to mention the school lunches! There’s always something delicious to tuck in to, and don’t even get me started on the dessert! Overall, Blue Coat has been great. I am used to the bustling corridors and the rush to get to lessons, and have really enjoyed the time I have had so far, especially with my friends. Laughing with Ashley, having fun with Harriet, sitting with Martine at lunch and having fun with the usual group. Thanks to the teachers and friends that make Blue Coat amazing!” We wish all our families a happy and peaceful Easter, and look forward to seeing everyone back, safe and refreshed, on Monday, 11th April. Yours sincerely, Headteacher School News Oxbridge Congratulations to all our Oxbridge candidates this year, and especially to the students who secured places at these and other highly competitive institutions for courses which are heavily oversubscribed. Aaron Hartnell-Booth: place at Wadham College to read Physics Daniel McLoughlin: place at University College to read Physics Changes To Curriculum Arrangements This affects all students, and especially Year 8, now and in the future. As a result of major changes that are being made nationally to the curriculum and assessment, we have decided to bring option choices into Year 8. All our students take EBacc (unless they have an additional learning need, or they need extra time for English and maths), and choose either History or Geography (or both), and either French or German (or both). They then have two choices from an extensive list and we encourage them to follow their interests and passions. The core of English Language and Literature, Maths, Double (or Triple) Science, RS, a Humanities subject and a language ensures that all bases are covered, so they can go for breadth and take creative or technical options, or a GCSE in PE, or Sociology, or computing, or one of the more applied options. The GCSE work will not actually start until January of Year 9, as pupils will need to develop their skills and knowledge base first. But starting in Year 9 will provide more time which will enable pupils to cover the increased content, and develop the skills for the new assessments which all come at the end of Year 11. These require embedding, learning and practising for application. We believe that this approach will help us preserve a broad curriculum offer, where pupils have choice and ownership, and will support continuing high achievement and progress. Snow We got off quite lightly in the end this winter (that is assuming there isn’t any more to come….) The snow zone policy worked well on 4th March, and thank you to parents for working with us on this. We opened and got the site safe. Some pupils set off, but were defeated by traffic gridlocks and had to turn back. Other students made it, sometimes brought in by parents, and whilst it wasn’t entirely normal service, lessons were taught, learning continued, and those who got in had a good day. We had to release students early because of the forecast, and potential transport difficulties. In the event, the forecast changed, and the snow stopped not long after the final students were released. For future reference: a tendency began to surface whereby some pupils in Zone 1 remembered that they were staying overnight with a pupil in Zone 4……. Or that they were not staying with parent ‘A’ in Zone 1 that night, but going to parent ‘B’ in Zone 4. Whilst I am sure that some of these late amendments to personal snow plans were entirely accurate and legitimate, nevertheless our policy needs to be clear, that students will be released according to their primary residence zone, and that private sleep-over arrangements cannot be factored in at short notice. I am sure parents will understand that this is necessary, so we know where students are, where they are going, and that they are safe. The Cranmer Education Trust Blue Coat has established a Multi-Academy Trust which two primaries, East Crompton St. George’s, and Mayfield, have now joined. We are breaking ground because this Trust is cross-phase (it includes children from nursery to 18-and-about-to-go-to-univeristy) and both schools with a religious character and those with a community basis. Its rationale is the children and young people, and the best provision for them and their life chances. At a time when education is changing rapidly, and coming under increasing financial pressure, the logic in schools coming together to create economies of scale has never been more powerful. And whilst all the admissions policies for the school will remain the same, and Blue Coat will continue to offer our places across the Diocese as well as the town, it makes sense to work closely with primaries as they develop their new curricula and assessment, so we can ensure that we are fully prepared for curricular transition at Year 7. Admissions We continue to be a very popular choice when it comes to educating our children. We have been significantly oversubscribed in both Year 7 and Year 12. The Local Authority has now sent out the offer letters to current Year 6 parents, and admission appeals will soon commence. The good news is that all Anglican applicants who put us as their first preference have received a place, as have some applicants from other Christian denominations who worship regularly. There is a long waiting list, but we know from past experience that there will be movement between now and September 2016. For Year 12 we have been delighted with the amount of external interest. Our first priority is to ensure our own students are accommodated, and throughout the year Mr Griffin and Mrs Murray from Connexions have been working with our young people to ensure that they are all signed up on the pathway that is right for them. Over 150 students want to come back to our Sixth Form, and they have all been interviewed to discuss their chosen pathway in detail. Currently we have interviewed 170 external applicants, and have made over 135 offers so far out of the 270 who applied. We expect this number to reach 150 from the remaining interviews. We wish we could accommodate everyone, but resources are finite, and we have to ensure we can provide a very good service for everyone concern. The curriculum, learning and achievement World Book Day To celebrate World Book Day the Library hosted a week of events including craft making sessions (bookmarks and book hogs), literary quiz bingo and the Big Read where we tried to get as many students and staff reading in the Library over lunch.