Director of Music
Oundle School
Northamptonshire
- New
- Salary:
- Generous pay scale and benefits package
- Job type:
- Full Time, Permanent
- Start date:
- September 2025
- Apply by:
- 10 January 2025
Job overview
To start in September 2025, we are seeking an exceptional Director of Music who is able to develop and inspire our pupils, and who wishes to participate in and contribute to the life of the School as a whole.
The Role
We are seeking a committed and highly competent Director of Music who is also able to contribute their own particular strengths and skills to the future development of the department.
The appointed candidate will be expected to build on the reputation of the school as a centre of musical excellence both within and beyond the community. The appointed candidate will work closely with colleagues in the department in the delivery of the school’s music programme.
Music is taught in classes to all First and Second Forms (Years 7 and 8). Pupils in the Third Form choose to study the subject and GCSE and A Level Music is delivered to good numbers, along with a 6th Form Diploma course option. The Music School has good facilities for technology in music and these play an important part in studio work and compositional work for GCSE/A Level. There are popular, weekly classes in theory and aural training.
The Department
The Music Department presently consists of the Director of Music, Head of Academic Music and School Organist, 5 Heads of Instruments specialising in Wind & Brass, Strings & Alexander Technique, Keyboard, Singing, and Music Production (with Guitars & Percussion), supported by a team of over 40 part-time visiting music teachers and two Administrators.
About 900 lessons are given each week. All pupils are encouraged to play in instrumental groups and to sing in choirs as soon as they reach a reasonable standard. Ensembles are tiered in terms of ability. At present, the largest ensembles include the CCF Marching Band, Symphony Orchestra, Chapel Choir, Chamber Orchestra, Wind Orchestra, Concert Band. Other significant ensembles include two Jazz Orchestras, Schola Cantorum, the Pipers and Drum Corps. Many smaller ensembles flourish in addition to these through all instrumental families, such as Chamber Choir, Junior Choir, rock bands, ukelele group, via percussion, wind, and brass ensembles, through to string quartets and a host of chamber music making.
The School
Oundle and Laxton Junior Schools have long been associated with the very best of modern independent education, especially boarding. The Schools take seriously their responsibility to pupils so that they can emerge as decent, open-minded adults; ambitious about what they can go on to achieve and contribute. Over 1400 pupils are on roll at the School, of whom 840 are full boarders. Academic results are steadfastly excellent.
A team of around 800 staff, both academic and support, ensure an education of the highest standard is in place across the Schools with the efforts of the whole team focused on this fundamental aim.
The Town
Oundle is a historic market town in Northamptonshire, famous for its beautiful Georgian streets and impressive limestone buildings. The town has a spirited cultural life, with an annual international festival, literature festival, and frequent performances of nationally touring shows at the School’s Stahl theatre. The town has a range of independent shops, coffee houses, pubs and eateries. Encircled by the river Nene, the town is also blessed to be surrounded by beautiful countryside with many picturesque villages nearby.
Queries relating to the specifics of the role should be directed to the Music Administrator music@oundleschool.org.uk.
For more information about the role and to apply, please visit our website via the apply button. Please note CV submissions cannot be accepted.
Closing date: 9.00am on Friday 10 January 2025.
Interviews: First Round, Friday 17 January 2025 with the second round, Thursday 23 January 2025.
Oundle School and Laxton Junior School are proud to be equal opportunity employers and we welcome applications from all. Both Schools are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Applicants will be required to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post including checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Recruitment Agencies
The Corporation of Oundle School has an internal recruitment department, but where agency support is required, we will engage our trusted partners. Our adverts are intended to encourage direct interest from potential applicants, not recruitment agencies. Speculative CVs sent from sources other than directly from a candidate, will not be acknowledged or considered.
About Oundle School
Location and introduction
Oundle School is one of Britain’s leading co-educational boarding and day schools, situated in the charming market town of Oundle, Northamptonshire. London is just an hour away by train via Peterborough and Cambridge is within easy access. Its buildings, dating from the 17th to the 21st centuries, are dispersed throughout the town, giving the school a unique and distinctive character. For over 460 years, the School and town have been part of the same community and both Oundelians and staff take their place within this community, not isolated from it.
Oundle has long been associated with the very best of modern independent education, especially boarding. As one of the largest boarding schools in the UK, Oundle ensures great breadth of extra and co-curricular opportunity with few limits on subject choice. It has 1,100 pupils on roll from age 11 to 18, with 860 boarders and 250 day pupils. The school attracts pupils from over 120 feeder schools across all corners of the UK and around 20% of pupils come from over 30 countries worldwide, ensuring a global outlook at the heart of a very British boarding education.
Academic
Oundle has a strong academic reputation; Oundelians have a natural love of learning and are ambitious in their approach to opportunity and the life of the intellectual mind. Average grades at A level are 20% A* and 57% A*A. At IGCSE/GCSE, over half of all pupils achieve 8s and 9s. Around 20 Oundelians receive Oxbridge offers each year and while most go on to Russell Group Universities, increasing numbers of pupils look across the Atlantic for higher education with a more global approach. Seven timetabled languages, 28 A level options, 26 IGCSE/GCSE subject options and over 40 different academic societies are offered. Oundle’s non-examined academic curriculum is particularly broad and challenging. Through the support of talented and dedicated teachers, pupils have ample opportunities to explore areas of personal intellectual interest, therefore succeeding as independent learners, capable of thinking, questioning and debating.
Pastoral
Oundle is a seven-day-a-week boarding school. It has a full boarding ethos and this is one of its greatest strengths for both boarders and day pupils. It is a big School with a big heart and whilst its size may seem daunting initially, it is carefully mitigated by the secure, smaller havens of the Houses and tutor groups. Effective care and support for pupils is ingrained in every aspect of pupils’ School lives. From the carefully structured House tutorial system to the informal, yet highly intuitive relationships that pupils form with supportive staff, Oundelians always have someone to turn to and someone to look out for them.
Co-curriculum
Oundle has a well-earned reputation for musical, theatrical and sporting excellence as part of an extraordinarily rich co-curricular programme. Based on the three strands of leadership, adventure and service, the programme provides pupils with opportunities to engage with the world outside School. Oundle takes seriously its responsibility to its pupils so that they can emerge as decent, open-minded adults: ambitious about what they can go on to achieve and contribute, but never arrogant.
Head
Sarah Kerr-Dineen
Vision and Values
Oundle sees its role not simply to steer pupils successfully to eighteen, or even to the point at which they join the world of work, but rather to support them in achieving the qualifications, skills, values and attitudes that will sustain them through what it hopes will be long, happy and productive lives. At the heart of the School’s Strategic Plan lie five core values: pupils, staff, opportunities, communities and quality. In the Head’s own words: “Pupils are at the heart of everything we do and every decision we make. We value the staff who contribute to the lives of our pupils in whatever capacity. We value the opportunities that the School makes available both to pupils and to staff, as well as the various communities of which we form part, not least former pupils and parents. We also recognise the value of seeking the highest quality in all that we do.”
School History
Oundle traces its history back to 1556, when Sir William Laxton, Lord Mayor of London and Master of the Worshipful Company of Grocers endowed a ‘Free Grammar School’ in Oundle, where he had been educated at the original Gild School founded in 1506. At the beginning of the 20th century, Oundle was put firmly on the map of leading English public schools by its most famous headmaster, F W Sanderson, who established Oundle’s reputation as one of the great science and engineering schools, a reputation still renowned today. Following a series of major capital developments including the Cripps Library and the Adamson Centre for Modern Languages, SciTec was completed in 2016, uniting Science, Mathematics, Design, Technology and Engineering (STEM) both physically and philosophically. The resulting STEM facility, developed with the support of Imperial College London and Swansea University Engineering department, sets the benchmark standard for science and engineering facilities across the UK.
The most recent development focus at Oundle has been on resourcing a modern, thoughtful vision of sport. A new Sports Centre housing a 50m pool, an 8 court sports hall, a fitness suite and multiple studios opens September 2020 alongside the existing School sports centre. The new facilities, which include a new athletics track, tennis courts, AstroTurfs, cricket nets and netball courts, will all support sport at a top competitive level whilst catering for a multitude of sports and leisure activities at all levels.
Within the Corporation of Oundle School is Laxton Junior School, a day school for 260 children aged 4 to 11.
Independent Schools Inspectorate
“Oundle School is highly successful in meeting its aims and pupils’ overall achievement is excellent, as demonstrated by their high levels of performance in public examinations and lessons, and within extra-curricular activities… The curriculum which underpins pupils’ learning is broad, well balanced and offers choice and challenge at all stages.”
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