Ever wondered what entrepreneurship education looks like in a Sydney Catholic school?
Join Sydney Catholic Schools’ (SCS) Supervisor: Global Capabilities, Liz Jackson, and four of SCS’ principals on Monday 25 October at 5pm for an online two part panel series to discuss ‘The Entrepreneurial Agenda in Schools’.
The webinar is being held as part of Find My Spark, the education arm of Spark Festival Australia’s largest festival for innovators and entrepreneurs.
Established in 2016 to support students to develop entrepreneurial skills and mindset through Design Thinking exercises that use real-world businesses and case studies, Find My Spark is Australia’s largest event connecting the K-12 entrepreneurial education ecosystem including educators, students, policy makers and external providers.
Sydney Catholic Schools’ Supervisor: Global Capabilities, Liz Jackson. Photo: Kitty Beale
SCS’ participating principals are: Ann Freeman (Bethlehem College Ashfield), Paul Forrester (De La Salle College Ashfield), Brigid Taylor (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College Kensington), and Zeina Chalich (St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School Arncliffe).
SCS’ participating teachers and system leaders Nicola Steele (St Clare’s College Waverley), Richard Hainsworth (Brigidine College Randwick), Magy Adams (Trinity College Auburn) and Roslyn Mahrous, SCS Education Officer: Global Capabilities.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
“Entrepreneurship education prepares students for the world of work as they will need to navigate a variety of jobs and careers,” Ms Jackson said.
“Embedding entrepreneurial ways of thinking early will help students play active roles in creating a more positive future.
“Entrepreneurship education helps students generate and apply ideas and enterprising behaviours and capabilities to create new value (cultural, environmental, economic).
“This can, but does not exclusively, lead to venture creation.”
A PRINCIPALS’ PERSPECTIVE
- Brigid Taylor
Panellist Brigid Taylor said Our Lady of the Sacred Heart’s entrepreneurial learning strategy is focused on “developing young women who can be leaders and changemakers at a social and global level.”
Our Lady is a girls’ only school for students in Years 7 to 12.
“A core focus then is on deep learning where students focus on the achievement of competencies across every subject and pathway,” Ms Taylor further explained.
“We will be developing a relationship with industry, networks, tertiary institutions and other schools so we can provide opportunities for our young women that prepare them for their future world.”
To support its entrepreneurial vision, the secondary school has created several new positions: Director of Entrepreneurship, Learning Pathways and Partnerships; Leader of Learning Pathways and Partnerships; Director of Integrated Learning; Director of Learning Innovation; and Director of Wellbeing.
- Paul Forrester
“By providing entrepreneurial learning opportunities to engage students in real-world learning, we hope to develop a student’s curiosity, imagination, resilience, self-regulation, appreciation of ideas, perspectives and values,” said De La Salle College Ashfield Principal, Paul Forrester.
“We aim to provide experiences that support students making connections to external stakeholders and between different learning experiences in order to develop the transformative skills identified in the OECD 2030 vision.”
They are:
- Think creatively
- Develop new products and services
- Develop new jobs, processes and methods
- New ways of living and social models
- New enterprises and business models
Mr Forrester said De La Salle would achieve the same through the development of a leadership role of Leader, Global Capabilities and Entrepreneurship.
He said the new role would work with staff and students “to develop learning experiences that engage students in new ways of learning including, but not limited to, the creation of passion projects for students that will transcend single course curricula and traditional outcomes and engage students in learning that will prepare them for their future.”
