building an entrepreneurial skillset

To instill the entrepreneurial mindset in each of our students, Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) is integrated into the Pre K-Grade 12 experience. Project-based challenges in the classroom provide an opportunity for students to build this way of thinking while practicing skills in the areas of business, design, and technology.

The Pre K-Grade 9 curriculum is embedded into the student's schedule, building toward a Capstone experience in which all sophomores launch a project. In Grades 11-12, students can continue to pursue their projects through a variety of electives and independent student opportunities, including the Venture Accelerator. Students interested in launching a project prior to 10th grade are encourages to apply to the selective Venture Incubator extracurricular.

young entrepreneur Curriculum

Pre K — 4th Grade

Grace Norcini wearing a High-Vis Vest from CEL class

CEL Overview in Lower School

Each Lower School student is given the opportunity to tackle a CEL project in the Fabrication Lab. They are encouraged to embrace their creativity and ingenuity, and to push themselves to try new things. Students are given project prompts such as “motivate our community to raise money for local food banks,” “design a high-visibility safety vest that more kids will want to wear,” and “design neon signs to, quite literally, highlight something you are proud of learning in your homeroom.” They brainstorm creative solutions and prototype products meant to improve the SCH community and beyond.

As they transition to Middle School, students leave the Lower School CEL program with greater confidence in their ability as a maker and collaborator. They take with them an appreciation for a diverse set of new media skills such as vinyl cutting, sewing, coding and electronics, 3D printing, graphic design, and more.

Design Challenges

Our youngest learners begin to develop their entrepreneurial mindsets through hands-on projects where they design products, fundraise, and gain financial literacy skills while nurturing their creativity and fine motor skills. Students interview real entrepreneurs whose innovative ideas help make positive changes around the world. In 1st grade, for example, students made custom laser-cut CEL currency to buy and sell products. The coins were engraved with classmates’ portraits to celebrate the diverse members of our community and raise awareness of the lack of representation on our current US coins.

Lower School Projects

Featured here are two recent projects from our 3rd and 4th grades. Our 3rd graders learned to make neon signs using words from SCH values, i.e. "integrity", and our 4th graders sewed, cut, and modeled high-visibility vests for our Lower School traffic circle.

Read about both of these projects in action below...

Neon-Sign Making

High-Visibility Vests

5th — 9th Grade

middle school students recording studio learn audio production

5th Grade Curriculum

Adventures in New Media
Just as painters use paintbrushes, students in this media class learn how to use digital technologies to express themselves in a rapidly converging world. Through a variety of project-based experiences, students build robots; learn digital fabrication skills like 3D printing, laser cutting, and vinyl cutting; and even create interactive sound and video assets.

Other classes include:
Digital Storytelling-Audio
Collaboration & Teamwork

6th Grade Curriculum

Social Entrepreneurship
Through the KIVA web platform, students research and identify entrepreneurs in developing regions of the world seeking small loans for their ventures. The students create and sell products to raise funds, then use the proceeds to make micro-loans to the entrepreneurs. To date, students in this course have made 107 loans in 39 countries, totaling more than $4,500

Other classes include:
LEGO Robotics
Digital Storytelling-Video

7th Grade Curriculum

8th Grade Curriculum

9th Grade Curriculum

Design & Fabrication
Students learn to envision, draw, and use the laser cutter to create 2D parts that assemble into a 3D structure. Short projects are designed to introduce students to the laser cutter, vinyl cutter, and silhouette printer while familiarizing them with the necessary computer skills to realize their designs. These skills are studied further in both the Engineering and New Media course in 10th grade.

Other classes include:
Electronics & Microprocessors
Intro to App Development
Research, Data, & Analytics

10th — 12th Grade

CEL CAPSTONE

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.

Venture Accelerator

ACCELERATOR

The CEL Venture Accelerator is an elective programs for students who are interested in pursuing a business venture beyond the CEL core curriculum in 11th and 12th grades. Individuals or teams apply to participate by submitting their ideas for review and, if selected, they are partnered with experienced mentors who guide them through the various phases of taking an idea from rough concept to authentic outcome.

TRADEMARKED & INTERNATIONALLY-TAUGHT

As the only Greater Philadelphia school offering entrepreneurship education for high school, middle school, and elementary school students, we take pride in what sets us apart.

In fact, SCH Academy’s nationally recognized CEL program has extended its reach internationally with a partnership licensing the school’s unique entrepreneurial curriculum to Arcadia Education’s secondary school in Dubai.

Our 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 CEL Brochure

LEARN ABOUT CAPSTONE