Where are you located?
Our school is in the close knit community of Rockville Indiana, home to the Covered Bridge Festival and many small businesses. It’s nestled between Terre Haute, Crawfordsville, and Greencastle.
What grades do you offer?
Well, we don’t really do grades… but we do have different categories based on age:
Spark Studio – Ages 4 thru 7 – The Spark Studio is THE place to ignite your child’s love of learning early on in life. Our four-year olds will be offered a part-time schedule, while our five-, six- and seven-year olds will maintain a full-time schedule. With Montessori and Reggio Emilia influences, this studio works to create collaboration and independence through play.
Explorer Studio – Ages 8 thru 12 – The Explorer Studio is where the academic learning adventure begins. When children are ready, they will begin challenges to become better readers, writers and mathematicians. Heroes will stretch their abilities while they challenge themselves to hone their leadership skills. They will work within the full Acton Academy model – Socratic Discussions, Core Skills and Hands-On Quests.
Is Acton Academy a Montessori school?
We respect and incorporate Maria Montessori’s philosophy, but we are not a Montessori school. We also use the latest interactive technologies, hands on projects and the Socratic Method for discussions.
What is the Acton Academy calendar like?
We operate on neighboring school calendars with options of built in “open studio” weeks after every learning quest (five weeks of study). Families can opt to send their children during open studio weeks or take advantage of extra time together.
What is an “independent learner?”
An independent learner is someone who can research questions, follow instructions, solve problems—admit that they don’t know something and figure out a solution when they hit a roadblock without asking an adult for help — participate in discussions, and strive for mastery.
What do you mean by a “running partner?”
Running Partners are classmates who meet together regularly to set goals and hold each other accountable for meeting those goals. Running Partners encourage and inspire each other by asking good questions, listening and providing affirmation.
Why don’t you group children by grade?
We believe that children learn best when working with children younger and older than themselves rather than split up into groups based solely on age. In addition to individualized curriculum, all ages of students work together in groups.
Do your studios serve students with special needs?
We are not trained to serve children with serious learning disabilities. We do welcome applications and conversations from all families for all children.
How do you ensure a high quality learning environment?
Deep at the core of Acton Academy is our commitment to serving customers and receiving transparent feedback. Because of this, we ask families to participate in a bi-weekly Customer Satisfaction Survey, where we ask them to rate us 1-5 on how well we accomplished our promises. We then share the results with the community. These surveys are our most important metric to measure the success of the learning community.
ACTON ACADEMY AT SUGAR CREEK 