Education at Sunrise Primary and Nursery Schools is a harmonious balance between academic guidance, creative expression, and inner growth, to develop the highest potential in every child. Based on a synthesis of the UK National Curriculum, Montessori methods, and Neo-Humanist principles, our curriculum provides varied activities that allow for self-directed learning.
Our holistic approach nurtures the all-around development of the child: body, senses, emotion, intellect, creativity, and spiritual awareness. We cater to children between ages 2-11. However, from November 2017 and until further notice, we are not able to offer 2-year-old places at our Tottenham Nursery.
The Tottenham Primary School opened in 1987 and the Nursery in 2005. In 1998, Sunrise purchased a piece of land in County Clare, Ireland, and expanded our scope of operation with Sunrise Farm.
Sunrise is part of a worldwide movement known as Neo-Humanist Education, the aim of which is to encourage a universal human society. The interaction of different cultures in our London schools enriches the children with an integrated outlook.
We feel that our children are our most precious resource and that by providing them with a holistic base for life we can help bring about a bright, more enlightened future.
Great importance is given to the daily circle. Circle time creates a family feeling of togetherness, a chance to share and listen, to sing and dance joyfully. It is a special morning time celebration where the magic and the true heartbeat of the school can be experienced by all from the youngest nursery child to the oldest children and by the teachers as well.
Practicing this meditation in circle time each morning develops the children’s concentration and awareness and most importantly, Ives them a direct experience of their own inner life. The children learn to be still and feel love.
Before meditation time we dance and sing kirtan with our eyes closed and our arms reaching upwards in a gesture of openness, a willingness to receive positive energy from the universe.
Such meditation and ideation develop in the children a sense of security and peace within themselves and a feeling of love for the universe to which they belong.
After this quiet time, the children can listen to a story, enact a drama or have a learning moment. Circle time helps to develop each child’s intuitive, creative and spiritual capacity.
Sunrise Primary School and Nursery provides Spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development (SMSC) which includes the promotion of Universalism which also includes the incorporation of British values by
- Enabling students to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem, and self-confidence.
- Enabling students to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England.
- Encouraging students to accept responsibility for their behavior, show initiative, and understand how they can contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of the school and to society more widely.
- Enabling students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England.
- Encouraging further tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions by enabling students to acquire an appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures.
- Encouraging respect for other people.
- Encouraging respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic processes, including respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England.
The school aims to take pupils to at least one place of interest per academic term as part of the British values learning curriculum.
At Sunrise, we strive to awaken in the children a joy of learning and a thirst for knowledge that will remain with them all their lives. Imaginative play, games, and stories enhance instruction and the Montessori approach nurtures motivation and concentration. Yoga exercises, sports, and a vegetarian diet encourage a healthy and coordinated body. Music, arts, dance, and drama provide scope for Sunrise children to discover their expressive skills and a deep appreciation of the arts.
Through gardening, nature studies, and care for animals, true ecological consciousness is awakened in the children who come to feel themselves as part of Nature.
At Sunrise, the children practice a simple form of meditation. Feeling love within each day develops a direct experience of the inner self and a feeling of oneness with others and the world around. Sunrise’s unique curriculum imparts character-building values – integrity, moral courage, self-confidence, self-reliance, and a spirit of service.
