Our approach
How a child actually learns here
A child works at their own pace, on real projects, in a room with children older and younger than they are, and is asked questions instead of being given answers. This page is the long version.
Three things worth learning
Learning facts matters. It matters less than three other things.
Learning to learn. Socratic discussion, challenges taken at your own pace, and long enough blocks of time to get properly into something. The output is a person who can teach themselves anything later.
Learning to do. Real projects in science, business and the arts, where the work is judged by whether it worked.
Learning to be. Hard choices with real consequences, repeated until they become habits and then character.
There are no teachers in the studio. There are guides.
A guide does not lecture and does not hand over the answer. A guide answers a question with a better question, and the responsibility for the learning stays where it belongs.
When a child is stuck, what they typically hear is: “What have you already tried? Have you met a problem like this before? Can you say it in your own words?”
What a guide does:
- designs the challenge and sets the rules of the game;
- protects the culture of the room and the promises the children made to each other;
- holds up a mirror when the studio is not living up to its own standards;
- keeps communication with parents transparent;
- hands over more of the running of the studio to the children every year.
What a guide does not do: lecture, grade, nag, or offer a verdict on your child’s character.
How we measure learning without grades
This is the fair objection, so here is the direct answer. Three instruments replace the mark.
Badges. A badge is earned when a skill is mastered, not when a week runs out. Parents follow reading, writing, maths, languages and character growth badge by badge.
Portfolio. Drafts, finished work, photographs and video, kept over years. You can see the change rather than infer it.
Public exhibitions. At the end of every session children present to a real audience and take real questions.
One warning worth giving in advance: growth measured this way is uneven. A child can stall for a month and then move a long way in a fortnight. If you are used to a smooth line on a report card, the first term can feel unsettling.
What we promise your family
Through Socratic discussion and learning by doing, we commit to helping every child:
- begin their own hero’s journey — find the thing that genuinely pulls at them;
- become a curious, independent learner for life, not until the next exam;
- respect freedom of thought, speech and choice, and the responsibility that comes with it;
- value art, the natural world and the questions nobody has answered yet;
- discover their own gifts and use them for something worth doing.
The phrase hero’s journey comes from Joseph Campbell: the pattern of a call, a set of trials, allies and enemies, and a person who comes back changed. It is the frame the whole school is built on, and children recognise it in themselves faster than adults expect.
A great deal of freedom, inside clear boundaries
Self-direction is not the absence of rules. The children write the rules of the studio themselves, sign them, and live with the consequences of breaking them — which is a considerably harder school than one where an adult keeps order.
- a guide does not lecture and does not give easy answers;
- mistakes are part of learning; shaming is not;
- the choice and its consequence both stay with the child;
- disagreements are worked out at the peace table before an adult is involved;
- communication with parents is transparent.
Before asking a guide, a child works through a simple protocol: think it through yourself, look it up, ask another child — and only then ask the adult.
What a day looks like
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 8:15 | Arrival, free time, moving about |
| 9:30 | Morning launch — a short Socratic discussion that frames the day |
| 9:45 | Core skills — reading, writing, maths, languages — and setting the day’s goals |
| 11:30 | Art, physical development, civilization, communication |
| 12:00 | Lunch and time outside |
| afternoon | Quest — around two hours of practical challenge with a team |
| close | Tidying the studio; reviewing the day together |
| 16:00 | Home |
A launch is a short framed discussion that opens a block of work — not a lesson. The week has its own shape too: Monday is for setting goals, midweek afternoons are for the quest, and Friday brings the whole studio together to review the week, give each other feedback and name the character somebody showed.
A year in quests, not in subjects
The year is divided into seven quests rather than into subjects. Each runs three to six weeks and ends with a public exhibition on the final Thursday.
Three from previous years, to make it concrete:
- The detective quest. Five weeks of biology and genetics, ending with the children setting the puzzle and the parents trying to solve it.
- The business quest. Six weeks from idea to a real stall at Āgenskalna market. One rule: parents are not allowed to help.
- The survival quest. First aid, lighting a fire, filtering water — with the final test spent in tents.
Why the ages are mixed
Children between six and twelve share one studio. This is a design choice, not a consequence of size.
Older children become leaders and mentors because somebody younger is watching. Younger children see what is possible a year or two ahead of themselves and reach for it. And because nobody is on the same page as anybody else, the question “am I ahead or behind?” quietly stops making sense — each child is measured against their own goals.
The work itself is organised in long uninterrupted blocks, a principle we take directly from Montessori.
The network behind the studio
Acton Academy was founded in Austin, Texas in 2009 by Jeff and Laura Sandefer, who were also looking for a school for their own children and did not find one. There are now more than 300 Acton Academies in 26 countries. Riga was the first in the Baltics.
Each campus is independently run and locally owned. What is shared is the learning design: the quests, the badge system, the Socratic method, and the promises. What is local is everything else — the language, the city, the families, and the law we operate under.
Is this the right school for your family?
Fifteen minutes, no commitment — you ask, we answer. In English, whenever it suits you.