Arcadia Education has announced a formidable partnership with one of the top American private schools, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCH), to introduce its nationally recognised entrepreneurial programme at Arcadia’s secondary school in Dubai.

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) is one of the Springside Chesnut Hill’s signature programmes and is committed to developing an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset in every student over the course of their academic journey. To instill this mindset, CEL is integrated into the Pre-K -12 school experience and the curriculum is embedded into students’ schedules.

Ed Glassman, SCH’s Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, says, “Our faculty have spent many years carefully crafting and refining a sequence of instruction that delivers a powerful product and impacts every student.”

That curriculum first caught the attention of Arcadia’s CEO, Navin Valrani when he was a graduate student in the University of Pennsylvania’s Educational Entrepreneurship program and visited the site of SCH’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership – a hub of creativity, problem-solving, and prototyping.

“The minute I walked into the Center, I just knew that Arcadia and CEL would have an agreement to bring this outstanding programme to Dubai,” says Valrani.

Arcadia’s secondary school is an extension of The Arcadia Preparatory School, a three-year old independent primary school in Dubai, which has grown to over 500 students in a short space of time. Its model is based on the National Curriculum for England, and bolstered by holding the status of Apple Distinguished School. It also provides a robust Junior MBA and Lego robotics programme to its students.

Arcadia Education will expand into the secondary school market in the coming months, adding Year 7 and additional grades year over year. The introduction of SCH’s cutting-edge programme will continue to distinguish Arcadia within the region’s education market.

Building entrepreneurs of the future

Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s CEL program prioritises the development of four key traits that comprise the entrepreneurial mindset: opportunity seeking, creative problem solving, resiliency and resourcefulness. Equipped with this mindset, students take on interesting challenges that connect with their passions and graduate with a competitive advantage.

“Entrepreneurship has always been a core theme at Arcadia and our partnership with CEL takes our curriculum offering to an exciting level in our secondary school. At Arcadia, our ethos has always been about meeting our students’ aspirations and this partnership will give our students the necessary skills to pursue their ambitions across a wide variety of career choices,” says Graham Beale, Principal.

The roadmap for the partnership between SCH and Arcadia includes curriculum guides, staff descriptions, equipment that may be necessary to execute and maintain the programme, and professional development for CEL faculty. They will have the opportunity to travel to Dubai to provide hands-on, small-group training on their subject of expertise to the Arcadia faculty, which includes three SCH teachers who will visit Dubai in the summer to teach workshops before Arcadia launches the CEL curriculum in September for its Year 7 cohort.

“The SCH program has been built inside a highly collaborative, expert faculty comprised of unique educators,” says Glassman. “SCH has ten faculty who teach CEL classes, including coding, app development, design and fabrication, digital publishing and electronics and microprocessors. The Center is also comprised of an advisory board and a cohort of mentors from various business sectors that work closely with students.”

SCH Head of School, Steve Druggan says, “CEL brings purposeful, real-world learning to our campus on daily basis. This is a unique partnership and it exemplifies the essence of the entrepreneurial mindset we teach every day. At its core is recognising opportunity.  I am excited to see  how this work will push our practice and drive us to continue to build a standout programme for the benefit of SCH students and, now, those in Dubai.”