In short: Pieter Groen College is a secondary school in Katwijk, the Netherlands. This school is an important member of the Association of Schools for Entrepreneurial Learning. Pieter Groen College encourages students to take ownership of their own learning process.
Age group: Students are between 12 and18 years old.
Initial challenges: Schools for Entrepreneurial Learning stimulate entrepreneurship with their students by creating personal learning goals and combining these with curricular aims. All students define, to some extent, their own learning path; they choose which lessons are important for them and which lessons they can skip. In addition, students undertake entrepreneurial projects which contribute to the development of entrepreneurial skills and attitudes. After years of experimentation, fixed curricular programs have been discontinued and instead, schools are encouraged to make choices around pedagogy, curriculum, teacher training and timetabling. Sharing experiences between schools and networking are one of the main goals of the Association.
What they did about it: Students and teachers in Pieter Groen College, with the support of the Association, undertake many entrepreneurial projects around social issues, as part of a special program has been set up for entrepreneurial students. Teacher training includes guidance on the implementation of the educational program, skills in how to coach entrepreneurial students and promotion of an entrepreneurial culture throughout the school.
Results: The School opened in September 2014 and today more than fifty students are undertaking the special entrepreneurial program while more than one thousand students are completing entrepreneurial projects. Almost all teachers within the School are trained in entrepreneurial education. The local community is also involved in supporting students and in designing work-based projects so that students have the opportunity to learn in a real-life context (e.g. a local company).
Relevance for entrepreneurial teaching: This example illustrates that it is not necessary to implement a fixed program of study when entrepreneurial learning is adopted throughout a school. In this way, each school, can make choices on learning and teaching that suits the history, goals, students, teachers and possibilities of its community.
Applied assessment methods and tools: Guidelines, entrepreneurial scans for students, personal portfolios and entrepreneurial training for teachers, such as the Iguana training and Quality for Innoation scan (Q4I).
Contact information:
Rob Mataheru r.mataheru@andreascollege.nl / Suzanne de Kroon suzannedekroon@gmail.com
Links: http://pietergroen.nl, www.scholenvoorondernemendleren.nl