Sycamore Hall Preparatory School

Overview: Sycamore Hall Preparatory School is a good school that provides a calm, orderly environment where pupils feel safe and make excellent progress across the curriculum. The school's strong focus on reading excellence and its ambitious curriculum serve pupils well, helping them to excel and meet the staff's high expectations.

Strengths:

• The school's calm, orderly environment makes pupils feel safe and encourages good behaviour.
• Pupils show respectful conduct, both in and out of class, and are kind to one another.
• The school's star-based reward system provides significant motivation for pupils and fosters a culture of respect and purposeful learning.
• The school's strong focus on reading excellence yields great results, with teachers blending phonics with regular opportunities to enhance learning outcomes.
• The mathematics curriculum teaches pupils how to work and think like a mathematician, and learners with additional needs receive bespoke support.

Areas to improve:

• Recent changes to the PSHE curriculum are not embedded, and staff are adapting to teaching the new content and getting used to addressing gaps in pupils' knowledge.
• On occasions, teaching and activity choices do not focus sufficiently on the essential knowledge that pupils need to learn.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.