Acton Academy at Serenbe

Acton Academy at Serenbe, Primary/Middle Studio

Mission “inspire each child who enters our doors to find a calling that will change the world.”

TaC studios became involved with Acton Academy in late 2021. Our first task was to design and incorporate the school’s campus into and along with Serenbe’s tenets of a well-lived life: arts for inspiration, agriculture for nourishment, health for wellbeing, play for a joy-filled life, and education for awareness.

The campus currently has two buildings - the Nest/Toddler Studio (by Locus Design+Consulting, Inc.) and the Primary/Middle Studio (by TaC studios, Inc.). There are two additional buildings we designed for the campus – the Launchpad Studio and the Gymnasium/Auditorium which will follow to complete the campus.

The Primary/Middle Studios is a 2-story, 28,000 sf. building. The enclosed portions of the building are two separate stacks of classrooms, connected by a large open-air corridor. Each stack primarily consists of 4 classrooms and STEM rooms. 

Each classroom has its own outdoor covered terraces that connect visually and physically to the natural surroundings. Included in the building are support areas; Entry, Administrative, Offices, Conference, Infirmary, Storage, and Restrooms.

The School has an EarthCraft Light Commercial Certification, which is a green building certification program for resource-responsible design and construction. 

The program focuses on the project site planning, energy, water efficiency,  building durability, and improved occupant health and comfort. 

In addition the building has Geo-thermal heating and cooling, Tesla solar panels, and class room window locations to create greater connections to the outside.

Acton Academy at Serenbe was founded as a one-room Montessori school in the fall of 2010.

During the next several years, the school grew from one room to three rooms and in early 2016 the executive board recognized a need to expand beyond the curriculum they were offering for ages eleven and up.

In January 2018, they were awarded an Acton charter and in the Fall of 2018, re-opened their doors as Acton Academy at Serenbe.

The primary studio remained Montessori-based and the elementary studio fully adopted the Acton curriculum

The initial elementary class began with 13 students and grew to 20 by the Spring of 2020. Enthusiasm and enrollment demands allowed the addition of a middle school class in the Fall of 2020 and expanded to high school in 2021 with over 150 students. 

It is a learner-driven model which flips the focus of the traditional school.