Reading Blue Coat School

The child who does well here tends to be curious and willing to join in, without needing to be the loudest in the room. Reading Blue Coat is an independent day school in Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire, taking pupils from 11 to 18. Girls have joined Year 7 since 2023 and the school becomes fully co-educational in 2027, so a child starting Year 7 that September arrives in a school that is mixed the whole way through. Main entry is at 11+, with further places at 13+ and in the sixth form. The site is Holme Park, forty-six acres of grounds running down to the Thames, a few miles out of Reading. There is no boarding.

The school was founded in 1646 by Richard Aldworth, a London merchant with Reading connections, who left money to educate twenty poor boys of the town. It moved out to Holme Park in 1947 and stayed. The old blue coats survive as ceremonial dress worn by senior prefects, and the motto, 'Veritas Omnia Vincit', still stands over the place. Daily life has a river in it: the boathouse sits on the Thames below the grounds, near Sonning Lock, and rowing opens up from Year 9, alongside the rugby, hockey, netball and cricket. Pupils start things of their own, among them Cafe Neuro, set up by pupils for neurodivergent classmates.

The Good Schools Guide calls this a 'diverse, warm community' and its pupils 'rounded and grounded'. The admissions staff say plainly that they look for kindness, curiosity and engagement. It suits a child who wants to try a lot of things, likes being outdoors as much as in, and will settle better somewhere that knows them by name.