Sugar Hill Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is an outstanding school The highly effective teams of leaders and governors have ensured that Sugar Hill has gone from strength to strength since the previous inspection. The attainment and progress of pupils, from early years to the end of key stage 2, have improved significantly and are now well above those found nationally.

Staff have risen successfully to meet the high expectations leaders have of them. Together with the outstanding teaching, the inviting curriculum and wide ranging extra-curricular activities ensure that pupils thrive and achieve highly as they move through the school. Teachers and teaching assistants work as a dynamic and enthusiastic team....

They know the pupils well. Very strong relationships between staff and pupils ensure that pupils enjoy school, are safe, attend regularly and are well supported when there are concerns. Teachers usually assess pupils' current achievements carefully and plan activities that move pupils on successfully from their individual starting points.

This is not consistently the case in lower key stage 1. Governors have an insightful understanding of the school's strengths and weaknesses. They hold leaders to account robustly for the impact of their work.

Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is strong. It contributes to the pupils' exemplary behaviour and to the care and support pupils afford one another in and out of class. Pupils' attitudes to learning are superb and the pride they take in their work is praiseworthy.

From the moment they enter school, high expectations and well-established routines ensure that children from the earliest ages settle in quickly. Children in early years make excellent progress and now leave Reception very well prepared for key stage 1. Leaders are resolute in identifying anything that is not as good as it should be and get onto improving matters straight away.

The 2016 gaps in the progress and attendance of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities compared with their peers have been obliterated. This year, their attendance and rates of progress by the end of key stage 2 are much stronger and often above those of their peers nationally. Changes in the use of pupil premium funding for disadvantaged pupils have accelerated their progress successfully.

Many are outstripping their peers in the progress they make by the end of key stage 2.

Information about this school

Sugar Hill Primary School is larger than the average-sized primary school. There is one Nursery class and two Reception classes.

Staff in the school run a breakfast club daily. The majority of pupils are of White British heritage. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is above average.

The proportion of pupils who require school support for their special educational needs and/or disabilities is broadly average. The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan is below average. The school meets the government's floor standards, which set the minimum expectation for pupils' attainment and progress by the end of Year 6.

The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website. A new headteacher and chair of the governing body have been appointed since the last inspection. An extended leadership team was developed in September 2016.