Dear Member,
You will all be aware that Bluecoat Sports (BCS) is on the grounds of Christ’s Hospital (CH), a busy boarding school. Most of you will also be aware that BCS is also the school’s sports facility, used for PE lessons and the students’ sports provision.
As part of the school’s continuing improvement of safeguarding arrangements, an in-depth review of operations at BCS has been conducted. This work by the school and external advisers has determined that there should be greater segregation between students and BCS members.
This will lead to some changes in the way the Club operates which will be implemented from early January 2026. We have worked hard with colleagues at CH to keep the impact as low as possible on both sides of our operating partnership. This has resulted in us looking in detail at the CH timetable and curricular and member usage data, to enable us to develop a compromise for both parties.
We are working through precise details of the arrangements but some broad principles have been established which we have set out below.
Broad principles
- There will be times during the week when the whole Club will be closed to members and the facilities will be open to CH students only:
- Monday: 14:00 – 17:00
- Thursday: 14:00 – 17:00
- Saturday: 14:00 – 17:00
- Sunday: 14:00 – 16:00
- To meet our obligations for best practice, there will be no shared use of individual spaces, other than the sports hall where there is a physical barrier between the two sides of the hall. Consequently, there will be times, in addition to the above, when individual activity areas will be closed to members and only available to CH students. All opening hours can be viewed here.
It is worth stressing that these changes will only apply during CH school term times. Outside of these times, including leave weekends when CH students are not on site, the Club will be fully available to members. The CH term dates can be viewed here. - There will be changes to access control arrangements across the Club; further details of these will be shared with members as solutions are finalised.
Tennis courts
Tennis courts will no longer be a public space and tennis will therefore no longer be bookable as an activity or included within BCS memberships. The tennis courts are a long way from BCS and are potentially difficult for us to oversee from a safeguarding perspective. In addition, the courts are located immediately adjacent to changing spaces for CH and visiting students. As a consequence, it is felt that these are not an appropriate space for the public to use. We are in consultation with local tennis clubs, hoping to set up arrangements for BCS members to receive favourable rates should they wish to join those clubs.
Other changes
Moving forwards, the change in the way we programme use of BCS for CH students is likely to lead to a greater standardisation of member activity programmes, meaning less disruption to your usual routines between school terms.
As part of the changes set out above, we have reviewed our opening times. From early January 2026 we will be extending use of BCS on the following days.
Tuesday BCS will open at 06:00 rather than 06:30
Thursday BCS will open at 06:00 rather than 06:30
Saturday BCS will open at 06:30 rather than 07:00.
Sunday BCS will close at 20:00 rather than 18:00
You can view the full opening times here.
We understand that this communication may lead to additional questions. Please see the Frequently Asked Questions on our website which we will continue to update as queries come in. If you have questions not covered here, please do get in contact via info@bluecoatsports.co.uk.
We would like to thank you for your understanding of the need for these changes and reassure you that we are doing all we can to minimise the impact on your use of the facilities. We hope you can respect the proactive and responsible steps we have to take to ensure compliance with safeguarding regulations. And, as ever, we would like to thank you for your continued support of BCS.
Bluecoat Sports
