SCH announces international partnership with Arcadia Education in Dubai, UAE

Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s (SCH) nationally recognized program will extend its reach internationally with a partnership licensing the school’s unique entrepreneurial curriculum to Arcadia Education’s secondary school in Dubai.

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) is one of the school’s signature programs 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 CEL—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 program to Dubai.” says Valrani. 

Through a licensing agreement, SCH is now poised to deliver the expertise that they have developed locally and to share it with Arcadia Education in Dubai.  

Arcadia’s secondary school is an extension of The Arcadia Preparatory School, a three-year-old independent elementary school in Dubai, which has grown to over 500 students in a very short space of time. Their model is based on the National Curriculum for England and bolstered by its status as an Apple Distinguished School. It also provides a robust Junior MBA and Lego robotics program 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 entrepreneurial curriculum will continue to distinguish Arcadia within the region’s education market.  

Building entrepreneurs of the future

Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s CEL program prioritizes 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 their passions and graduate with a competitive edge.

“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 program, and professional development for CEL faculty at Arcadia Education. SCH faculty will have the opportunity to travel to Dubai to provide hands-on, small-group training on their subject of expertise, which includes three SCH teachers who will visit Dubai this summer to teach workshops before Arcadia launches the CEL curriculum for its Year 7 cohort in September.

“The SCH program has been built by a highly collaborative, expert team comprised of unique educators,” says Glassman. SCH has 10 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 works closely with students.

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

Photo Caption: Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCH) Head of School Steve Druggan and CEO Navin Valrani of The Arcadia College formalize a partnership between the two schools during a visit on site in Dubai. SCH has licensed the curriculum of its Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, one of the school’s signature programs, and will begin an extended exchange with the prestigious school in the United Arab Emirates using a roadmap that includes professional development training in Dubai, international collaboration between faculty, and shared curriculum. Attending the signing celebration are: (seated) Navin Valrani and Steve Druggan; (standing left to right) Pamela Chikhani, (Director of Strategic Alliances, Arcadia Education), Kephren Sherry (Head of Primary, The Arcadia Preparatory School), Graham Beale (Principal, The Arcadia Preparatory School and Arcadia College), Mohan Valrani, (Chairman, Arcadia Education), Ed Glassman (Executive Director of SCH CEL program), Katie Harvey, (Managing Partner, Q Communications).