The Blue School, Wells

The pedestrian entrance

The school was founded in 1641 as one of the first free schools in the country.[5][6] The name Blue comes from the early uniforms which were blue in colour. Some visitors to Wells have expected the school itself to be blue in colour, but this is not the case.

In 1654, Margaret, widow of Ezekiel Barkham of Wells, purchased a farm in Yenston, to endow a school in Wells. The Blue School retained the farm for nearly 350 years until it was sold in 1990 and 1992.[7] The income from the endowment was to be used for paying a schoolmaster's salary of £20-0-0 pa. and the residue for apprenticing the boys when they could 'read, write and cast accounts'.[8] The school owned a number of properties in the area scattered over several parishes.[8]

Other schools were united with The Blue School foundation, including Hodge's Charity School.[8] As befitting a Church of England foundation, the Blue School has a Chaplain, plus partnership links with a school in Zambia.

The Blue School was the first pilot for an innovative approach to school councils based on self-selection called Learning to Lead[9][10] The School Community Council received praise in the School's 2007 Ofsted report.[2]

The school council runs on principles of self-election, and has over 250 members, including students of all ages and staff. Meetings are conducted during lunch times and projects include: keeping chickens, fundraising for many charities, running a garden and many more.

In 2010 two visionaries launched an ambitious project, backed by Lottery Funding, to set up a School-based radio station. The project, run by students, produced a series of podcasts. In mid 2013, after relocating, the "Blue Lounge Radio" prepared to begin to broadcast again pending the arrival of new hardware.

A charity for the benefit of the poor of St. Cuthbert's parish was established in 1675 by the will of Adrian Hickes of London, although lands in Wells and Glastonbury to endow the charity were not purchased until 1701. In 1713 a voluntary subscription school was established in Wells for boys and girls and a schoolroom was built for this purpose by Philip Hodges. He also purchased land in Glastonbury St. John, the income from which was to be used to pay the master's salary. In 1715 it was proposed that a charity established by Barkham be amalgamated with that deriving from the Hickes bequest.

Philip Hodges' will of 1723 empowered the master of the subscription school established in 1713 to teach also the pupils of Barkham's charity school. Lands in Lympsham, East Pennard and Pylle were purchased in 1732 and an estate at Norwood Park, Glastonbury in 1735. In 1740 the estates of all three charities were transferred to new trustees. Some property in Frome was acquired between 1732 and 1764 and in Queen Camel between 1730 and 1739. The charities all became part of the Blue School foundation.[8]

The current school is made up of two main blocks, Milton and Kennion which are named after the roads which they are closest to. They were built as separate schools in the 1950s and 1960s respectively but they were then joined in the 1970s. The next major change was the sports centre in 1999 which added large sporting facilities for the use of the school and the general public. Then in 2005, the school built a brand new science block.[11] More recently, in 2013, a block (named Barkham) was built, on the disused swimming pool, specifically for sixth form lessons.[12]

• Speleologist and founder of Wells Museum Herbert E. Balch (1869–1958) won a scholarship to the school.[13]
• Filmmaker Edgar Wright was a student at the school from 1985 to 1992.[14]
• Actor Duncan Pow was a student at the school.[15]
• Scholar and humanitarian practitioner Patrick Webb was a student at the school from 1970 to 1977. He was one of the school's representatives to the Executive Committee of the Wells Civic Society in 1976/77.[16]
• Bob Kerslake, former Head of the Home Civil Service and permanent secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, was a student at the school.[17]

• Official website
• Blue School Council
• Learning To Lead