Enriched Learning
Gaining new experiences and enjoying a breadth of activities keeps our students extending their interests and talents, whether it’s volunteering, trekking through the mountains overseas, or speaking in front of a large crowd.
Extra-Curricular Activities
Across Sunmarke we provide students with Extra-Curricular Activity opportunities to develop their interest in various activities and channel their energy into developing new skills.
These are school-run activities conducted by our teaching staff, and activities vary from term to term, and from year to year depending on availability and staffing.
Clubs are held before school, during lunch and after school. A typical range of clubs and activities include:
- Street dance
- Radio Podcast at Sunmarke Radio
- STEAM & The Environment Club
- The Great Sunmarke Bake-Off Cooking Club
- Yoga
- Choir
- Media, Marketing & eCommunications Club
- The World Scholars Cup – Debating/Public Speaking Club
- Maths Enrichment
- Drama Club
- Design Club
- Art Club
- Computing & Robotics
- Badminton
- Football
- Hockey
Public Speaking
We firmly believe in the importance of developing our student’s presentation skills whilst giving them the opportunity to think deeper, critically and have a platform to share their ideas. Our students have lots of opportunities to develop their public speaking skills and express their opinions.
With visits from the prestigious Oxford Union and being a host school for the world-renowned World Scholars Cup and the TEDx talks, everyone has the chance to have a voice.
The World Scholar’s Cup is an international team academic programme with students participating from over 50 countries. The competition and World Scholar’s Cup has attracted “a global community of future scholars and leaders”, and allows participants to “discover strengths and skills you never knew you had.” It focuses on bringing students from different cultures together to discuss issues and ideas relevant to today and the future.
Our students have participated in the Dubai Rounds, the Global Rounds in Vietnam and successfully qualified and participated at the Tournament of Champions hosted at Yale University in the USA. Students enjoyed visiting and getting a feel for other Ivy League Universities too.
As an official TEDx event host, we look forward to hosting more community-based discussions to spark ideas and connections.
The first TEDx event held at Sunmarke School – themed #YouAreHere – was an epic occasion.
14 talented and poised Sunmarke speakers living in the “Now” shared their visions of the future from cars to the Internet to the human species.
Residential Trips
Students have the opportunity to embark on many residential adventures in Secondary and Sixth Form. We have close partnerships with Camps International and Ecoventure ME that offer regional and international trips for our students to experience throughout the academic year.
Sunmarke is proud to offer The DofE International Award which guarantees to enrich our students lives with practical experiences, life skills and allow them to discover talents that they never knew they had!
The Duke of Edinburgh International Award was founded in 1956 by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. Since then it has become the world’s leading youth achievement award, bringing together practical experiences and life skills to equip young people for life.
The concept of the Award is of individual challenge designed to encourage young people between the age of 14 to 25 to develop into responsible, active citizens who will positively contribute towards society.
What’s involved?
The Award is voluntary, non-competitive, enjoyable and balanced, and requires students to expend effort over a period of time. There are three levels to the Award: Bronze, Silver and Gold. Young people design their own Award programme, set their own goals and record their own progress. They can choose a Service, Physical Recreation or a Skills activity; or go on an Expedition; and to achieve a Gold Award, take part in a residential project.
Service
The International Award gives students the opportunity to give back to the community and make a real difference to the people or wildlife/animals, or to contribute to a good cause. The Award acquaints students to the joy of giving and participation in community development.
Some examples of services include: first aid, visiting and supporting people in need, volunteering at hospitals, sports coaching, charity work, etc.
Physical Recreation
Physical Recreation, both individually and within a team, is a healthy as well as fun way of developing a real sense of achievement outside the classroom. Apart from instilling enthusiasm, it also instils a feeling of well-being in students.
Examples of Physical Recreation are: Ball Sports, Athletics, Water Sports, Winter Sports, Martial Arts, Animal Sports, etc.
Skill
The Duke of Edinburgh International Award encourages students to learn something new as a part of the process. Whether they have always wanted to ski or capture moments through photography, the Award allows them to do just that. There is no competitive nature, only the pleasure that comes from learning a new skill of their choosing.
Some examples of skills are: Music, Arts and Crafts, Nature and the Environment, Communication, Games and Sports and related skills, etc.
The Adventurous Journey
The Adventurous Journey section encourages a sense of adventure and discovery whilst undertaking a team journey or expedition. As part of a small team, participants plan, train for and undertake a journey with a purpose in an unfamiliar environment. Students will spend 2 days and 1 night away completing a minimum of 6 hours of purposeful effort per day, and 12 hours of purposeful effort in total.
Visit: https://www.dofe.org/what-is-dofe for more information
Volunteering Opportunities
Volunteering is at the very core of being a human and one of the greatest gifts we can give others, is our time. The Sports Heroes Academy is just one way our students are giving back to help those around them in our community. To find out how to volunteer your time for this programme, please click below:
The Sports Heroes Academy, a one-of-a-kind sports programme, welcomes more than 40 young people into Sunmarke School each week, to train with one of Sunmarke’s 65 volunteer students. Directed by Miss Murphy, a PE teacher at Sunmarke, the programme aims to provide our athletes with equal opportunities regardless of their ability in their chosen sport. An aspiration for these young athletes is to eventually have the opportunity to reach Special Olympic standards one day.
Sunmarke’s student volunteers work closely with the Inclusion Department at the School to learn the necessary skills to coach and assist their “buddies” during training sessions. This peer-coaching programme draws upon our School’s core values and Positive Education ethos whereby confidence, physical skills and social communication skills for our athletes are built upon. It also allows for meaningful friendships to develop with a deep admiration for the athletes’ strength, perseverance and courage.
In line with H.H. Sheikh Hamdan’s initiative, which aims to make Dubai a friendly city for people of determination by 2020, this powerful programme continues to touch hearts and receive growing support from people across Dubai including external providers such as C.F Tennis Academy, Streetwise UAE and Apollo Perelini.
More information:
The Sports Heroes Academy programme caters for all levels of ability and is completely free for young people within the Dubai community to attend. If you would like to how to register your child for The Sports Heroes Academy or donate your skills as a Sports Coach, please contact Ms Hollie Murphy via sportsheroesacademy@gmail.com
"The school provides a very broad range of curricular and extra- curricular activities that nurture student’s talents and interests” - KHDA 2018-19