Oundle School has dismissed plans announced this week by the Cabinet Office, which would force them to open facilities for public use or face losing their charitable status.

David Harris, Bursar at Oundle School said: “The proposals have attracted a great deal of public attention. This is in direct contrast to the way in which schools such as Oundle are already quietly meeting the principle of public benefit – and have been doing for generations.”

Oundle awards so many scholarships and bursaries that just under one third of its pupils are in receipt of some form of fee assistance. Many of the school’s facilities – including music facilities, theatre, gymnasium, art gallery, school hall, astroturf, football pitches, tennis courts, rugby pitches and cricket pitches – are used by the community on a daily basis. There is three times as much public use of the school swimming pool as there is use by the school itself.

Each week over 300 Oundle School pupils and staff undertake some form of community service and each summer the pupils support residential holidays at the school for Mencap youngsters and residential breaks for disadvantaged inner city children.

David Harris said: “All this activity goes mostly unreported. I believe that the general public would be surprised to know just how much public benefit independent schools provide.

“They may be equally surprised to know that, despite this, the government taxes independent schools by not allowing them to recover VAT on their expenditure.

“The plans outlined by the Cabinet Office would therefore have little practical impact. If they were implemented, they would simply oblige us to do what we are already doing.”