Plans have been launched to build a £1m science block at Oxford School.

The scheme is for a two-storey curved building featuring 10 laboratories equipped for physics, chemistry and biology — including one which would be available for community use at the school, in Glanville Road, East Oxford.

School projects director Pat Norman said the new building, which would be funded by Oxfordshire County Council, would allow the school to extend its A-Level science programme.

She said: “It’s very exciting to have got this far.

“The old science block is now ceasing to function as a science block and we have had terrible problems with it over the last four years.

“For a year-and-a-half we have had to use two temporary laboratories.”

The new building would provide the school with two extra laboratories and mean the old building could be converted into classroom space.

Mrs Norman said: “We are going to strip out the labs and make them into classrooms, which we have already had to do in three classrooms.

“The new science block will allow for growth in our sixth form, particularly in terms of more students staying on and doing science.”

The building would be put up on unused land next door to the sports hall changing rooms. It would not take up any of the sports pitches.

Mrs Norman said the school — which has a pupil population of 1,200 — hoped to have the laboratories fully operational by September 2010.

She said: “We have been to visit new buildings at Faringdon Community College and St Birinus School in Didcot to get some ideas.

“It’s a really uplifting feeling to have new facilities, especially when you have been struggling with slightly below par facilities for some time.”

The exact cost of the building is not known — but it has been estimated at more than £1m.

The school, which has a specialism in business and enterprise and became the city’s first foundation school in September 2008, will contribute some of its own budget towards equipping the laboratories.

Oxfordshire County Council is due to make a decision on the scheme later this year.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk