School as an Adventure

In the late summer, our learners embark on a new journey.
The year is organized into six adventures that we call sessions where learners work together to conquer a Quest.
Each session ends with our learners proudly hosting an exhibition— an event to show the community what was accomplished.
Infinity School has many moving parts.
Learn about them below.

Community

A Second Home

Our learners begin to build their community on day one. This means drafting a contract to hold each other accountable, determining rules of engagement when collaborating, holding regular town halls to solve problems, deciding what and how to celebrate, and assigning leaders to foster excellent work and community culture.

Our learners find ownership, intentionality, and belonging in their school.

Quest

Project-based Experiential Learning

Connected by an overall narrative, Quests are interdisciplinary projects focused on a specific topic for a session. Mirroring the real world, Quest challenges require learners to solve problems collaboratively and evaluate their work using realistic metrics.

To give you an idea, past Quests have included: putting on a play, running a restaurant, and making a model electrified city.

Core Skills

Self-paced Learning Modules

Learners progress through individual modules at their level, having a community of peers and educators to go to when needing support. We use programs that track time spent, areas needing support, and progression to mastery. 

Learners complete a number of minutes of core skills a day, letting each learner go at their own pace and progress after mastering a skill. The key is to celebrate achievement, encourage confidence, and watch them sore! 

Core skills include reading, written conventions, mathematics, physical education, and second language. The studio community determines time requirements per week.

Growth

Our recipe to help foster growth includes the following ingredients:

  1. Each child is a genius that simply goes at their own pace.
  2. Mastering a skill before moving on to a subsequent one provides a strong foundation.
  3. The two most important aspects to excellence are a true effort and growth from your previous self.

How is this tracked?

  1. Learners show their progress in a studio through completion of badges
  2. It all begins with a Badge Plan for the year, which becomes a daily and weekly reference for goal setting
  3. Learners develop a portfolio of excellent work to use to apply to the next studio (when all badges are complete)

Integration

Applying Core Skills to Real-World Problems

Learners apply their core skills through weekly gamified challenges in mathematics, social sciences, and forms of writing.

At times, these challenges are integrated with Quest (such as: city planning with Electricity Quest, play writing for a drama production). 

Pedagogy

We are an Acton & Montessori Microschool

Infinity School is an affiliate of Acton Academy, a network of learner-driven schools. In this environment, our learners grow their: critical thinking, conflict resolution, advocacy, project management, problem solving, emotional regulation, and self-/ group- awareness. 

Our Ignite Studio is developed from both Acton & Montesorri pedagogy. The environment is set up with materials for the learners to choose from and progress through.



The Hero’s Journey

Building Intentionality with Storytelling

The year and its sessions are tied together with the hero’s journey narrative. This helps give purpose and intentionality to the challenges a studio and its members will face. Its stories are a helpful reminder that they are not the first to face tough hurdles and how transformative a challenge’s lessons are.