Through our rigorous college-prep curriculum grounded in project and passion-based learning, SCH students build resilience and ownership while gaining an unparalleled academic foundation for life.

Offering a solid foundation in the liberal arts (Arts, English, History, Math, Science, World Languages), SCH's Upper School has an array of electives that are tailored to our unique educational environment. Whether your student is looking to foster a love for math and dabble in video production, take an in-depth look at courses offered in Upper School. 

Upper School Course Curriculum

All class schedules are built on how the student tests should they test into a higher grade level course. Over 100 elective courses are offered at SCH. These schedules are current student 5-day view. Download graduation requirements here.

With over 40 choices, activities and clubs lets students discover new interests, take on leadership roles, and make friendships across grade levels. In the beginning of each school year, Upper School holds a Clubs and Activities Fair for students to browse and select ones they're interested in.

Short list of offerings:

• Black Student Union
• Honor Council
• Model UN
• Players
• Robotics
• Yearbook
• Eco Club
• Fashion Club
• GSA
• World Languages Clubs
• Student Ambassadors

Student Experience

All incoming students are placed into advisory groups of 10-12 that are paired with a faculty advisor. The heart of the advisory program is the relationship that develops between students and their advisor over the four years of Upper School. Advisories meet twice a week and spend time working on studentship skills, discussing topics such as current events and the responsible use of social media, setting goals, reflecting on experiences, and bonding over breakfast. Advisors oversee the academic and extracurricular life of their students and act as the first point of contact on campus for students’ families.

Student Experience

In 9th grade, students are given a choice of CEL courses per semester, deeper than what was learned in previous grades, but a taste of each CEL studio: App Development, Invention, New Media, Social Impact, and Startup.

All SCH sophomores engage in the CEL Capstone—a unique, self-directed project-design experience. With the support of dedicated faculty mentors and access to specialized studios, students bring ideas inspired by their personal passions to life using the business, design, and technology skills learned in previous CEL classes. There are four distinct stages to the Capstone process: discover, define, design, and deliver. Students may elect to continue their work in their junior and senior years through the Venture Accelerator.

CEL Program

The College Counseling Office at SCH is committed to helping our students navigate the challenging yet exciting journey to finding your college match. Our college team is here to guide you through the college admissions process and to clarify the critical factors that colleges and universities consider when selecting students. We encourage our students to take ownership of the college process, and we are here to offer quality information, honest evaluation, and plenty of encouragement.

College Counseling Program

Our Upper School robotics team, FIRST Team 1218 Vulcan Robotics, competes in FIRST Robotics Competitions (FRC). In March 2019, the team and its three allies won the final, nail-biting match by one point, making them the World Robotics Champions.

In the past, the team has won multiple awards for design, innovation, and engineering. For the fifth time, they have also garnered the coveted Chairman’s Award—FIRST’s most prestigious recognition honoring the team that demonstrates exemplar partnership effort.

Engineering & Robotics Program 

The Global Travel Program challenges students to think critically about their roles as global citizens in an increasingly interconnected world. Through our trips abroad, students gain a deeper understanding of new people, places, and cultures through language and cultural immersion and exchanges, meaningful service-learning experiences, and field research and experiential study. Recent trips include: Iceland, Taiwan, Senegal, South Africa, France, and Cambodia.

Student Experience

MUSIC: Upper School students may elect to participate in choral or instrumental ensembles or the Songwriting and Music Production courses. The Songwriting and Music Production courses utilize professional level software and students are encouraged to use the resources of the Vidcast Studio to create a finalized master of their work. The ensemble offerings include Concert Choir, Orchestra and the honors level Chamber Singers, Chamber Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble. All honors level ensembles require an audition. As part of Chamber Singers, two a cappella groups, Laurelei and Hilltones, are formed. All ensembles meet during the school day.

Music Program

PERFORMING ARTS: Theater elective is offered for students who wish to expand on their interests and passions for the performing arts. Students may select to focus on acting, advanced acting, technical design (stage crew), directing, and playwriting in this class. Players is the school’s award-winning extracurricular dramatic troupe.

Performing Arts Program

VISUAL ARTS: Our diverse studio art curriculum gives SCH’s high school students the opportunity to take creative risks and find their individual style. Every course is taught by a working artist in our faculty—each with an area of expertise that boasts many years of experience in the professional art world. Classes range from beginning to advanced levels of drawing, painting, design, photography, woodworking, and ceramics. Our goal is for students to utilize art as a universal language—to question and comment on the world around them, thereby providing a meaningful context for lifelong engagement with the arts—creating a portfolio of work to carry with them into college/university and beyond. 

Visual Arts Program

Every 9th grader takes a Creative Coding class (XCode), a Design and Fabrication class, and two CEL classes. Students may choose to be a part of the New Media studio as part of their 10th grade CEL Capstone project. After Capstone is completed in 10th grade, students may elect to take New Media progressions in architecture, video production, photography, digital art and graphic design, gaming, 3D modeling, songwriting and music production, animation, or creative coding for app creation. 

New Media Program

At the start of 9th grade, all students participate in a five-day Outward Bound expedition along the Appalachian Trail (within 1-2 hours of SCH) guided by the Philadelphia based Outward Bound School. Outward Bound has more than fifty years of experience, and our partnership with them ensures that the program will be an intentional, safe, and dynamic experience.
 
Outward Bound’s learning approach, one that “emphasizes high achievement through active learning, character development, and teamwork,” is an excellent complement to our existing orientation, advisory, and sports programs that will make the transition to Upper School both easier and more meaningful for our students. Our students affectionately call all our Outward Bound experiences "Type Two Fun". You have to live it to love it. 

Outward Bound

The goal of the Upper School world languages program is to offer our students the opportunity to communicate with purpose in either Chinese, French or Spanish in order to express themselves and negotiate meaning in our diverse world. By offering student-centered tasks and assessments in a learning environment that contextualizes the information, the students gain freedom to take risks, show what they can do, and grow patience and resilience in order to confidently engage with the world beyond our classroom. The goal of our Upper School Latin program is to help students become competent readers and translators of Latin. This involves a close study of the grammatical structures of Latin and of English. Students learn forms, sentence structure, syntax and vocabulary through the translation of both Latin into English and English into Latin in order to master the subtlety of usage. Original Latin texts and secondary readings provide an understanding of the historical and cultural world of the Romans.