Bishop Vesey's Grammar School has been educating boys in Sutton Coldfield since 1527, making it the oldest state school in the West Midlands and one of the oldest schools anywhere in Britain. It was founded by John Vesey, Bishop of Exeter, a close friend of Henry VIII and tutor to the future Queen Mary I, who endowed the school so that local boys could be taught grammar and rhetoric free of charge. Nearly five centuries on, the school still carries his name and his motto, Dextra Dei Exaltavit Me - the right hand of God exalts me.
Today BVGS is a selective state grammar school with academy status, home to around 1,025 pupils aged 11 to 18. It remains a boys' school through to Year 11, with a co-educational sixth form, and has held specialist Language College status since 2004. The school sits on the Lichfield Road on the northern edge of Birmingham, and its pupils are grouped into six houses - Blue, Gold, Red, White, Purple and Emerald. Former pupils are known as Old Veseyans.
The school has a long tradition of producing people who go on to leave a mark: the 17th-century writer Robert Burton, Le Mans-winning driver Ken Miles, broadcaster Cat Deeley and a string of senior diplomats and academics all passed through its gates.
Rugby is woven deeply into the school's identity. Peter Robbins, capped by England throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, learned the game here, and Leicester Tigers' Dan Hemingway is among the more recent Old Veseyans to reach the professional ranks. In 2008 the programme took a significant step forward when Isaac Feaunati, the former Bath and Samoa back-rower, retired from playing to become the school's Head of Rugby, bringing Test-level experience to a side that has long punched above its weight in Midlands schoolboy rugby.