Project 24 is our vision for securing the long-term security and success of Oundle School for all our pupils, from the four-year-old joining Reception at Laxton Junior School to the eighteen-year-old preparing for life beyond Oundle.
We place the highest value on giving our pupils every possible opportunity to flourish and on being true to our identity as a co-educational boarding school. Fundamental to this commitment is the quality of our care, including the physical and pastoral structures that make it possible.
Project 24 celebrates our profound belief in co-education and in guiding our children’s development. It also embraces our long-held belief that boarding offers the best environment within which to realise our ambitions for all our pupils. The realisation of Project 24 over the coming years will steer our strategic development and enable us to maintain our vision of education in a changed and ever-changing world
We have already seen many aspects of Project 24 come to fruition. Developments at LJS include the completely transformed EYFS, Science and Art learning environments, while at Oundle Scott House, our junior day House, has been extended and Laxton has been refurbished and divided into two separate but linked senior day Houses: Sadler and Laxton. Two Acre has been remodelled into day dining space, enabling the day Houses to eat together as individual Houses. Graduated boarding has been introduced to The Berrystead, our junior boarding House, while Saturdays for our First and Second Form pupils have been reimagined through Omnia.
We are now applying for planning permission for McMurray House, a new girls’ boarding House, which will be located in the heart of Oundle town.
McMurray House is a cornerstone of Project 24. The core aim is to bring girls boarding into the heart of Oundle town through developing the site of the former Oundle Primary School into a 60-bed girls’ boarding house for 13-18-year-olds. The existing New House community will move into McMurray House once completed while the New House buildings and gardens will be retained as School accommodation and used to facilitate a large refurbishment package of works across the whole boarding estate. This will safeguard Oundle’s reputation as one of the UKs leading coeducational independent boarding schools.
The House is named after former Headmaster David McMurray (HM from 1984 – 1999). His visionary leadership during the late 1980s and 1990s marked the introduction of co-education at Oundle. As such, McMurray House serves as both a tribute to our 35-year legacy of co-education and a celebration of the centrality of boarding to life at Oundle.
It is anticipated that McMurray House will open for the 2027 academic year, as the current Third Form move into the Upper Sixth.
Discover more about McMurray House
“Project 24 is our once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in those things that matter most to us.”MRS SARAH KERR-DINEEN, HEAD OF OUNDLE SCHOOL
