Page 57 - OO_2018

The School's Director of Sport, Danny Grewcock, discusses the new development with parents and pupils at a reception held in the Great Hall in February
(and has excited many OOs) that the new Sports Hall will benefit from retractable tiered seating for spectators, which will also enable the whole School to be seated together inside a School building for the first time since the most recent expansion in 1990.
During what we call the ‘quiet phase’ of fundraising, we have already raised just over £4m towards a total cost of £24m+VAT. Whilst we benefit from carefully stewarded reserves and an extremely favourable revolving credit facility, we need a great contribution from parents, OOs and our other wonderful supporters to make our visions reality, and keep Oundle at the top of its game.
The Sports MasterPlan is just the next chapter of a continuing story of philanthropy which has made Oundle what it is today and we hope that everybody will at least consider supporting it. No contribution is too small, although we need everybody to be as generous as they are able and willing to be in order to achieve our goal.
I sense that tomorrow, and the weeks and months beyond, will be anything but quiet as we open up this monumental appeal.
You can find out more at
www.oundleschool.org.uk/Sports- MasterPlan.
new Sports Centre, which is currently emerging out of a ‘field’ in Oundle.
Almost everything that you will have enjoyed whilst you were at Oundle is a product of a similar notion. The appeals for SciTec, the J.M. Mills Pavilion, the refurbishment of the Cripps Library and the Adamson Centre for Modern Languages are still in our recent memory, but it is humbling (and apposite at the present time) to remember that the Chapel was built by subscriptions in memory of those OOs who fell in WWI and that the Great Hall was also a result of charitable giving.
Just as SciTec is now lauded as one of the best ‘STEM’ facilities in any school in the UK, so we intend that our new Sports Centre will be something of which OOs can be proud and from which pupils will derive enormous benefits. The average Oundelian spends at least one-third of their time doing sport. The educational benefits of sport include the simple notion of mens sana in corpore sano, which, pleasingly, is gaining currency again in the world of education, even amongst the most academically driven. But, beyond this, the results of pupils participating in sport include qualities for which Oundelians are renowned, such as self-confidence, sporting behaviour, good decision-making, strategic thinking and taking personal responsibility.
Why is this ambitious project necessary? The current swimming pool was dug in the 1930s as an
outdoor pool, enclosed in the 1970s and has now come to the end of its economic life. It has to be replaced and, as we do so, we want to take the opportunity to benefit Oundle sport more generally.
The Sports Centre adjoining the current pool was completed in 1987, when the School was 12% smaller and served only boys. This centre – with its squash courts, fives courts and other specialist facilities – will remain and so the new development will represent an increase in capacity, enabling a wider range of activities to be offered. We hope that this will enable every pupil to find a physical activity that they enjoy and can continue into adulthood. Whilst it is an ancillary benefit, it is worth noting
COLUMN
The new Sports Centre will include a 50-metre swimming pool, divisible into two by a submersible divider, with one half having a movable floor
THE OLD OUNDELIAN 2017 –2018
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