Sprites Primary Academy, including entrance walls with sculptural relief panels to Stonechat Road

Sprites Primary Academy is a former infant and junior school designed in 1959 by Birkin Haward of Johns, Slater and Haward for the County Borough of Ipswich. Work began on site in 1958, with the infant school completed in 1959 and the junior school in 1960. The job architect was HF Fleck, assisted by J Earwaker and K Dowse. The school was converted to a single primary school in 2004, with minor alterations and extensions undertaken in the later 20th and early 21st centuries. The listing includes five cement relief panels and brick walls flanking the school's Stonechat Road entrance gate, but excludes the nursery school addition of 1996 and the early 21st-century link corridor and staff room.

The structural system comprises in-situ concrete columns carrying laminated timber hyperbolic paraboloid roofs over classrooms and assembly halls. Infilling is of brick or timber-framed glazed walls with aluminium sash windows. Administrative and service areas have load-bearing brick walls and timber roofs. All roofs are covered with bituminous felt.

The school lies on a north-east to south-west alignment, with the former infant school occupying the north-east section and the former junior school the south-east. Classrooms are grouped in pairs around the perimeter and set around two assembly halls, linked by cloakrooms. A later corridor addition running north-east to south-west now links the two schools.

The principal ranges comprise a pair of double-height assembly halls along with single-storey classroom blocks, all with hyperbolic paraboloid roofs, while administrative and service areas are single-storied with flat roofs. Timber-framed glazed walls throughout retain aluminium sash windows, and although most clerestory windows to the assembly halls and classrooms are now shaded, they retain their glazing.

The school is entered through a glazed lobby projecting from a flat-roofed range with two flanking bays to each side. The left-hand bays feature timber-framed glazed walls followed by brick walling with an abstract relief panel of flint, pebbles and an inscribed fish motif. A north to south aligned classroom block stands to the left, with a later 20th-century nursery addition featuring a pyramidal roof attached and projecting beyond it. The first bay to the right of the entrance has a horizontal rectangular window with differently coloured brickwork suggesting later addition. The second bay has a timber-framed glazed wall. Rising behind the entrance and its flanking bays is a double-height assembly hall with timber-framed glazed walls to the upper level and shaded clerestory windows in the roof angles. To the right, behind louvered and boarded doors, is the boiler house with a brick and weatherboarded water tower topped with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof. The second double-height assembly hall, with similar timber-framed glazed walls and shaded clerestory windows, stands at the right of this range and is linked by a recessed kitchen block.

The south-west, south-east and north-east sides comprise a sequence of projecting classroom blocks with elevations of brick and timber-framed glazed walling. Each has a single wooden door providing direct outdoor access. All have clerestory windows in the roof angles, some now shaded. Each classroom block incorporates an abstract relief panel constructed from cement, pebble and flint set into its brick walling.

The interior features two assembly halls as core elements to which all classrooms respond. The halls and classrooms have painted and plastered walls and boarded and varnished ceilings. Classrooms have composition block flooring now covered with carpet, while cork flooring is used in the assembly halls. Suspended light fittings hang from tie rods under the hyperbolic roofs, with recessed fittings under flat roofs. Later 20th-century fluorescent lighting has been introduced throughout.

The entrance gates on Stonechat Road are flanked by brick walls into which are set five cement relief panels by Bernard Reynolds. The left-hand wall contains the original school nameplate reading "IPSWICH EDUCATION COMMITTEE / SPRITES LANE / JUNIOR AND INFANT SCHOOLS", while the right-hand wall has four panels with sculpted relief figures depicting, from left to right: parents and children; an owl representing wisdom; children signing, bearing Reynolds' signature; and a group of children.