A Look Inside the Studios at Acton Academy East Bay

About a 5 minute read

The first weeks of a school year at Acton Academy are about much more than learning names and settling into routines. Learners are figuring out how to work beside one another, what they can expect from their studio, and what their studio can expect from them.

That is the work of Session 1: Build a Tribe.

Over the past six weeks, our Eagles created studio agreements, practiced new Core routines, made decisions together, and took on projects that required them to listen, contribute, adapt, and follow through.

Every studio also created a music video for Acton Academy’s International Lipdub Competition. In Sparks, our youngest learners focused on play, relationships, and intentional choices. In Elementary, learners built a carnival from the ground up. In Middle School and LaunchPad, Eagles planned a trip anywhere in the United States and pitched their ideas to families.

The projects were different, but the work underneath them was the same: learning how to become a strong member of a tribe.

Here is a look inside each studio.

Sparks Elementary  Middle School / LaunchPad

Sparks, TK to 2: Finding Their Voices

Our youngest learners began Session 1 with a question they could practice every day:

How do we care for one another in this studio?

Through stories, puppet role play, games, and conversation, Sparks practiced sharing, taking turns, speaking kindly, working through big feelings, and learning how their choices affect the people around them.

They also helped create and vote on their Studio Contract.

This is an important part of what learner-driven means at Acton. The expectations hanging on the wall are not simply rules handed down by adults. Learners have a voice in deciding what kind of community they want to create, and then they begin the much harder work of practicing those commitments together.

Their Lipdub gave them another opportunity to do exactly that.

Sparks chose “Life Is a Highway” and helped plan the choreography, costumes, props, and backdrop. They practiced their parts, learned how to move together as a group, and experienced what it feels like to contribute to something that belongs to everyone. When they finally shared their video with the Acton community at Exhibition, they were beaming with pride in what they had accomplished together.

Core looked different for every learner. Some Sparks built words, practiced handwriting, and explored numbers with hands-on materials. Others worked on longer writing, more challenging books, multiplication, and division.

That flexibility is one of the strengths of our small studio environment. Learners do not need to be doing the exact same work at the exact same time to be learning deeply. We can meet them where they are, build confidence through mastery, and continue stretching them from there.

Geography afternoons gave them another way to explore. Learners drew and wrote about North American animals, habitats, and landmarks while practicing research, fine motor skills, language, and curiosity.

They also visited the Livermore Library, where they read, journaled, explored the shelves, and chose books to bring home.

Fridays quickly became something special as learners brought items from home to share with their peers. Sparks Sharing may look simple, but it asks a lot from young learners: standing in front of a group, speaking clearly, waiting for a turn, listening when someone else is speaking, and showing interest in what matters to another person.

At the end of the session, Sparks brought all of that work together at Exhibition. Learners created “All About Me” artwork, practiced speaking roles, and shared their work with families.

For many, it was their first experience standing in front of an audience and saying, in their own way, “This is what I made. This is what I learned. This is mine to share.”

Elementary: Making Something Together

The Elementary Studio spent six weeks building a carnival.

Coming up with a game was the easy part. Turning that idea into something other people could actually play required a very different set of skills.

Learners had to make decisions as a group, divide responsibilities, build and test their games, listen to feedback, and make changes when something did not work.

A game that failed during testing was not a failure of the Quest. It was the Quest.

At Acton, we want learners to experience the full cycle of creating something real: having an idea, discovering that the first version may not work, adjusting, and trying again.

That process builds far more than a finished carnival game. It develops communication, perseverance, problem-solving, leadership, patience, flexibility, and the ability to work through disagreement without abandoning the goal. These skills can be harder to measure than a math score, but they are some of the most important skills learners will carry with them into adulthood.

At the same time, Elementary was building the studio itself.

Session 1 is when Eagles begin creating the agreements and systems that will shape their year. They make decisions, test them in real studio life, and then evaluate whether those systems are actually creating the culture they intended.

Some of those conversations were serious.

Elementary learners chose a policy that would keep an Eagle from attending field trips for six weeks after two tardies. They discussed how strict the policy was and what it could mean for someone who was late. Ultimately, they decided that arriving on time mattered because the opening of the day is when they host Socratic discussions, which is dependent upon everyone being present. A learner arriving late affects more than their own schedule.

The decision reflected the studio culture they wanted to build: one where being prepared, being present, and honoring commitments to the tribe matter. It was their decision. And part of learner ownership is experiencing the responsibility that comes with making decisions together.

Writers Workshop introduced a different kind of connection. In “You’ve Got Mail,” every learner received a secret pen pal and an alias. They wrote letters, asked thoughtful questions, and learned to include enough detail to give their reader something meaningful to respond to. Only the Guide (Ms. Ann) knew who was behind each name until the final reveal.

Their Lipdub offered another lesson in turning individual ideas into a shared outcome. Learners listened to possible songs, voted, and selected “ABC” by the Jackson 5. Then came the harder work: learning lyrics, developing choreography, deciding how everyone would participate, practicing, revising, and eventually filming the final video.

These are the moments when learners collide.

Ideas compete. Personalities differ. Someone forgets their part. Another learner wants to lead. A plan that sounded great does not work once everyone tries it. That friction is valuable.

When Guides resist the urge to solve every disagreement for learners, they create space for Eagles to practice the skills they will need far beyond school: communicating clearly, compromising without giving up, recovering from frustration, holding one another accountable, and continuing when the work gets hard.

Core asked for a different kind of responsibility: ownership of individual progress. Learners worked toward personal goals in math, reading, grammar, spelling, and typing. Because Core is self-paced and mastery-based, learners can spend more time where they need practice and continue moving when they are ready for greater challenge.

For some learners, that means working well above a traditional grade level. For others, it means slowing down long enough to truly master a foundational concept before building on it. Both matter deeply in developing a learner who loves to learn.

The goal is not to move quickly for the sake of moving quickly. It is to build confidence through genuine mastery and help learners discover that their education is increasingly something they can own and manage themselves.

This session’s field trip took Elementary to the Livermore Library. Learners explored the shelves, learned how to search for and locate books, and selected a Deep Book for next session’s book report.

Eagles will carry the habits they began building in Session 1 into Session 2: showing up prepared, managing their time, following through on commitments, asking for help when they need it, and taking greater ownership of their learning.

The systems are beginning to take shape. The work for the rest of the academic year is learning how to use them well when no one is standing beside them telling them exactly what to do.

Middle School and LaunchPad: From Possibility to a Plan

Middle School and LaunchPad began their Plan a Trip Quest with a surprise! Ms. Kaylee transformed the studio into an airport, complete with a pretend TSA checkpoint, airplane seating, and a flight safety briefing.

Then the real work began.

Learners researched destinations, planned activities, built budgets, and made the case for why their trip would be worth taking. As the numbers added up, choices became real.

Could they afford the hotel they wanted? Was an activity worth the cost? What would parents need to know before agreeing to send a group of learners across the country? What happened if the original plan fell through?

Learners revised budgets, built backup plans, created slide presentations, practiced their pitches, and gave one another feedback before presenting their proposals to families at Exhibition. Families then cast a silent vote. The selected trip will be revealed to learners in Session 2 and is planned to become a real experience in 2027.

When the work is real, the decisions become real too. That is one of the reasons we value project based learning at Acton. Learners experience that the quality of their preparation, communication, judgment, and follow through can influence an actual outcome.

Middle School and LaunchPad were also testing the systems they created to govern their studios this year. Eagles looked for unclear expectations, discovered loopholes, experienced where their systems broke down, and revised their agreements based on what actually happened. This is a vital part of Build a Tribe.

A strong community is not created by writing a perfect contract on the first day. It is created when people make commitments, live with them, discover what works and what does not, and have the courage to make changes when their systems are not serving the community well. By the end of the session, learners had created a Studio Contract they will hold one another, and themselves, accountable to throughout the academic year.

In LaunchPad, the stakes rise even further.

There is intentionally more autonomy in the high school experience at Acton. Learners manage more of their own time, schedule check ins with their Guide, track long term work, explore career paths, and begin making decisions with consequences that increasingly resemble adulthood.

Sometimes they miss an appointment. Sometimes they underestimate how long something will take. Sometimes they do not meet a deadline. Those moments can be uncomfortable, but they are also important.

A Guide could step in early, solve the problem, remind a learner repeatedly, and make sure nothing goes wrong. But if we remove every opportunity to fail, we also remove many of the opportunities to learn ownership.

We would rather learners experience small failures now, when the consequences are still relatively inexpensive, and learn how to recover. Those moments create space for the reflection, judgment, resilience, and personal responsibility they will eventually need when the stakes are much higher. They are some of the most important preparation we can offer for life beyond school.

This session, LaunchPad learners also researched possible careers, began courses and language study, and interviewed mentors. At the same time, they stepped into leadership within our community by helping younger learners prepare for Exhibition, work through Core concepts, and understand how to host and present their work to families.

Leadership at Acton is not simply being the oldest person in the room. It is learning how to become useful to the people around you.

More Than the Finished Project

At the end of Session 1, families joined us for a learner led Exhibition.

They played carnival games designed and built by Elementary learners. They listened to Middle School and LaunchPad Eagles pitch trips they had researched and planned. They watched studio Lipdubs. They listened as learners shared work they had spent six weeks creating.

What families saw was the finished product of a six week sprint.

What they could not always see was everything it took to get there. The disagreement that had to be worked through. The idea that failed the first time. The learner who had to speak up. The learner who had to listen. The group that discovered a good idea was not enough without follow through. The Core goal that required weeks of practice before something finally clicked. The deadline that was missed. The second attempt. The moment an Eagle realized, “I can do this myself.”

Those moments are where much of the learning at Acton lives.

We care deeply about strong academics. We also know that knowledge alone will not prepare a learner for the world ahead. They will need to know how to make decisions when there is no answer key.

Those skills cannot simply be taught in a lesson. They have to be practiced.

That is why we build tribes. That is why learners make real decisions. That is why Guides sometimes resist stepping in. And that is why the process matters just as much as the finished project.

Session 1 gave our learners the opportunity to begin practicing skills.

Session 2 gives them the chance to build on them.

We cannot wait to see what they do next.

If you are curious about what a day at Acton Academy East Bay feels like, we would love to show you around.