Coventry Blue Coat Church of England School
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The Coventry Blue Coat Church of England School and Music College is a comprehensive school in Coventry, England. The school is situated in the Lower Stoke area of the city.
The current headteacher is Stephen Timbrell. The school motto reads "Christian Education With Care". It is also a Cross Of Nails school, with links to a school in Bethlehem.
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History
The school was founded in 1714 as a school for girls. The original uniform was markedly different to the current more conservative uniform, and included caped dresses and white hats
The school moved to its present site in 1964.
The current Bluecoat School uniform comprises: For Boys: White Shirt (all year) Black/Grey Trousers (all year) Bluecoat Tie (4+ stripes) Black Socks Black Shoes (not trainers)
For Girls: Yellow Shirt (Winter) Check White/blue Shirt (Summer) Blue Trousers (all year) Black/Blue (All Year) Black Shoes (no heel)
Present
The school currently educates around 1305 pupils, and has recently become a specialist Music College, one of very few in the country. The school has extremely good relations with the present Coventry Cathedral, holding several church services there every year, including its Prizegiving, a ceremony where about one hundred outstanding pupils from the whole school are awarded for their efforts.[citation needed]
Year and School Councils
The school has a system where, at the start of each school year, every form elects two to three representatives who serve on the year council. Out of these year councils two to three pupils are elected to serve on the school council. The year councils discuss issues regarding school life. These issues and concerns are put to the school council, who consider them. The school council is allocated a certain budget per year. This is, theoretically, used to resolve issues pupils have with the school. A running joke amongst school and year councils was that by far the most talked about subject was toilets. To this end the Year 10 council went as far as passing a motion to ban the use of toilets as a discussion topic in order to "encourage more productive areas of discussion."
Choir
The school choir is also very popular, and has been entering the BBC Songs of Praise School Choir of the Year competition for the last three years, and has come very close to winning several times.[1] The choir is a regular on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Daily Service.
Led by Mr. Philip Formstone, the school choir is a full 8-part choir, capable of performing many demanding choral works ranging from the early works of Thomas Tallis through Joseph Haydn's Insanae et Vanae Curae to the recent works of composers such as John Tavener. The choir visits cathedrals around the country annually, where it sings services for the week whilst the resident choir is away. These have included Chester, York, Blackburn, Salisbury, and Liverpool. The choir has also sung mass in St Mark's Basilica, Venice. This summer the choir visited Wells Cathedral, where it was widely praised for the high standard of behaviour and choral performance, and has since been invited back this coming July.
The choir receives additional support from various members of the public who bolster the ranks when support is required, providing a more balanced bass and tenor sound. The choir is very grateful for the continued support shown by these individuals.
Acceleration
For the past few years the school has taken part in an acceleration scheme that allows gifted students to take certain subjects GCSE exams a year early. This can be done for Maths, Science, Geography, Modern Foreign Languages, History and Music. It is also worth noting that the record GCSE results achieved this last year were significantly affected by the compulsory IT GNVQ, which automatically gives students four grade Cs. Because of this students only have to receive one other A*-C grade for the school to claim they have received 5 A*-C grades. Because students only have to receive one other A*-C grade this means nearly 100% of students receive good results.This next year is likely to see a significant decrease in the number of A-C grades due to the phasing out of the compulsory GNVQ.
Productions
Bluecoat usually does a production once a year, which is open to all students. However, around two years ago there was a sixth-form only production of Oedipus. The school's latest head of drama, Matthew Connor-Hemming, has directed two productions, Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle and a musical, Oliver!. Norman Owen, the school's music head, directed the music for this production.
Criticism of the School
Blue Coat has been the centre of some recent controversy in the surrounding area, namely due to their plan to fence off "Tabletop" field, to prevent burglars and other intruders from entering the school. This controversy is due to a dispute over who owns the land in question.
Development
The school has just finished building a new music centre. This is because of the new funds given to the school after it was given music college status. A floodlit astroturf pitch has also just been constructed. There are also plans to build a professional theatre with full digital lighting and a surround sound system. To make space for this the school has recently bought several unused allotments to bulid on.
