1951 with a five-building concrete block, and more significantly, between 1955 and 1957, the construction of the three-storey teaching block which is near the modern Colin Sanders building. In the late 1950s, the school faced another threat: a new road was proposed, to ease traffic flow, which would have straddled both the school fields and the site of the boarding house. This plan was never set into motion, and in 1957 the school built new laboratories, on the Plain roundabout end of the site, now housing both science and Design & Technology facilities. In 1959, a movement began towards constructing the present-day Big School building, which was designed by Booth, Ledeboer, and Pinckheard and eventually opened in 1966. The new building was hexagonal, with a stage and orchestra pit at one end and an altar (given by Magdalen College) in a chapel area at the other, as well as an acoustic-panelled ceiling and a cluster of lighting. With the opening of the new Big School, the old Big School became the school's gymnasium. With the stage removed, the floor replaced, a wall removed to connect the hall with the adjoining classroom, and with the addition of wallbars and gym apparatus, this 'temporary' building began a new phase in its long history. Independence By the late 1960s, the school's status as a Direct Grant scheme member came under threat as sweeping changes were made to the then Tripartite System. By 1976, the school was no longer a Direct Grant school, the Governors having opted to become fully independent. The 1970s also saw two further buildings: new Science buildings on the Cowley Road side, and a new music facility including a large rehearsal room suitable for a chamber ensemble or small orchestra, several smaller tuition rooms, a classroom, and sheet music and instrument stores. The school's quincentenary in 1980 saw the further addition of buildings on the Cowley Road side, including modern physics and chemistry laboratories. 1998 saw the opening of the new Colin Sanders building, named after an Old Waynflete who was heavily involved in fundraising for the building but died before its completion. It originally housed two common rooms on the ground floor, which later became computing suites, with the 1928 'Big School' undergoing another change of use to house a merged sixth-form centre next to the Staff Common Room, into which it subsequently expanded upon the completion of the