Our Philosophy

Promoting and safeguarding our pupils’ welfare is essential as we seek to empower them to thrive and to flourish, finding personal fulfilment through the various strands of their lives at School. We seek to support the development of resilience and self-esteem through their participation in a varied programme of enriching activities, celebrating diversity and encouraging individualism.

We seek to support the development of resilience and self-esteem through their participation in a varied programme of enriching activities, celebrating diversity and encouraging individualism.

We place great emphasis on the Oundle Code, which confirms our aspirations for a school characterised by strong values of mutual respect, wholehearted engagement, understated courtesy, considerate behaviour, and above all a cohesiveness which is inclusive of the Oundle town community, to which the School owes so much, living as it does at its heart. Listening to our pupils and responding to their views enables our relationship to be open and trusting, and the pupils to become their own people in a school which looks beyond the boundaries of its own world.

We want Oundelians to be confident, well rounded, fundamentally decent human beings: all aspects of our programme are underpinned by this ethos.

Oundle has long shown itself to be open to innovation and change, combining a strong and traditional educational model with new disciplines, techniques and facilities. The School’s ability and willingness to develop its delivery of an academic curriculum has been the defining measure of its success. The firm academic foundation that the School has built allows us to adopt and develop new approaches in pedagogy and technology. We aim to promote scholarship and research, and, in time, to position the School as a global leader of education.

Our pupil-centred curriculum nurtures Oundelians’ natural curiosity and ability, affording them the necessary time, resources and expertise to ensure each and every pupil is immersed in creative and productive work across its breadth. Academic excellence is acknowledged, pursued and rewarded at every opportunity, be that in the classroom, in our thriving academic societies or in intellectual endeavours beyond the confines of the School. Our curriculum is further supported by, and continually enhanced through, our inspirational teaching staff, investment in modern classrooms and technologies, the refinement of agile academic structures and the creation of unique learning opportunities for our communities both within and beyond Oundle.

This approach instils a love of scholarship – a Life of Learning – in all our pupils and staff, helping forge an intellectually curious community that collectively seeks to understand better, and ultimately improve, the complex world we inhabit.

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We recognise that the journey through adolescence is seldom straightforward. An important part of our educational responsibility is therefore to enable our pupils to celebrate their growing maturity, as well as to come to terms with personal challenge. We want every pupil at Oundle to know that they are cared for. They should feel that they are listened to and that we are all working together towards a common goal, which is for them to thrive. All staff have a role to play in the pastoral care of the pupils.

The House system lies at the heart of our pastoral care. The Housemaster or Housemistress (Hsm) oversees the whole House and, along with the Deputy Hsm, Matron and Tutor team, ensures that the pupils have a supportive and nurturing environment in which to grow up. A vertical Tutor system within each House enables the Tutors to know their tutees well, to operate meaningfully as the principal point of contact for parents and school staff, and to enable their charges to navigate a successful path through their time at Oundle, both Tutor and tutee being supported and guided by the Hsm. The third element of the tripod of care for each pupil is of course their parents or guardians; prompt and open communication is therefore highly prized.

An important part of Oundle’s vision for the pastoral care of children is the Learning for Life programme. This aims to provide pupils with the resources and opportunity to have informed discussions about the issues which concern them as they grow towards adulthood. Information is shared with parents through the programme to enable them to support their children throughout adolescence. The direct and regular involvement of the Chaplaincy, the Health Centre and the Emotional Wellbeing team in pastoral decisions signals the breadth of care provided.

The co-curriculum is vital to the achievement of our broad educational vision as a School, and for this reason all pupils and all staff are involved in the teaching and learning opportunities it offers. Its span is broad, including Sport, Drama and Music as well as many opportunities for creativity, service and leadership.

We seek to provide a broad range of enriching opportunities that foster growth, responsibility, toughmindedness and excellence. Growth includes the testing of personal limits, the taking of appropriate risks, the acquiring of skills and the development of aesthetic appreciation. Responsibility includes caring for oneself and others, caring for the natural world, balancing self-interest with community interests, and taking an active part in defining meaningful goals. Tough-mindedness includes keeping to a task until finished, honestly evaluating results, rooting out evasion and learning from failure with good cheer. Excellence includes loving high standards, respecting things done well, the courage to take initiative and the aiming at worthy goals.

We provide three development strands:

1. Leadership and adventure
2. Service
3. Creativity and culture.

We aim to balance guidance with individual flexibility, looking to ensure that there is a structured approach to each pupil having valuable experiences within each strand, whilst also enabling the flexibility for each individual’s innate aptitudes to be appropriately fostered. At the same time, we see the camaraderie engendered by sharing deeply felt experiences and working towards a common purpose as richly life-enhancing

Parents are warmly welcomed to sports matches, music concerts and theatre productions, as well as to a host of other School and House events.

Much of Oundle’s success has been built on a reliable and broad intake of pupils keen to make the most of the extensive educational opportunities available to them. These opportunities extend beyond the academic curriculum and into character education through both the co-curriculum and the fostering of independence that a residential experience offers. 

Entry Scholarships programmes provide the support for nurturing specific talent and those revealing potential later in their Oundle career can also join these programmes. There is no shortage of talented pupils wanting to come to Oundle to develop their intellectual potential and their character. For many families aspiring to send their children to a full boarding school, financial help with paying fees will be required. The willingness of Oundle and its communities to provide financial support through a means-tested bursary scheme is instrumental to ensuring access to the School is widened.

For the School, through Admissions, the challenge is to present Oundle openly and with integrity in order to help prospective pupils and their families to find the right School in which to realise their children’s potential. The journey to joining the school needs to develop confidence in the community they are joining and help them develop resilience by understanding that challenge is an essential part of education.

We are committed to making a social impact beyond our own School and our own pupils as well as learning from our peers across the educational community.  In addition we want to ensure that the community in which all our pupils grow up is diverse and socially representative.  Our partnerships and outreach programme promotes these twin aims.

Oundle seeks to provide its pupils with a balanced view of the world around them, to which we hope they will become the global contributors of the future. We offer our pupils opportunities to meet people from backgrounds different to their own and to be challenged by others of similar ability and interest, through collaboration with a wide range of schools, universities and other organisations. We promote innovative links and breadth of ideas in order to enable our pupils to act with a confidence that comes from understanding.

In addition, we seek to make the transformative potential of an Oundle education available to children whose family situation would put this out of reach and set aside up to 10% of our income each year to provide bursaries, ranging from 10 to 100%+.  We have for many years enjoyed a close relationship with Royal SpringBoard to enable access for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have in turn enriched the School they have joined.

The role of the Bursarial team is to support the vision of both Oundle School and Laxton Junior School. The pupils and their education guide all decisions. We aim to provide a world-class, inspiring environment in which the highest standard of education is delivered, instilling confidence in the School’s community by ensuring value for money and respect for the charitable funds we manage.

We make the most of the freedom we have as an Independent School. We seek to ensure that the School’s resources are directed in the most efficient and focused way, through thorough planning and coordinated activity. Part of our strategy is to manage and develop our financial resources to support the education of children from as wide a range of backgrounds as possible.

The Bursary is responsive to the needs of the School, integrated within the School’s planning processes and coordinated in response. We work together to forge a resilient School, able to navigate successfully the contemporary environment for independent schools and to plan thoughtfully for the future. We aim to be an employer of choice, sought out by the talent that can bring the School’s vision to life.