Everything you need to know before you begin.

There is no single way for schools to use Acorn.

Schools can use Acorn for whole-class learning, small groups, individual exploration, enrichment, intervention or cross-curricular projects. Teachers can guide the journey, allow children to make choices together, or adapt missions for different groups.

Does Acorn Explorers involve marking or assessment?

Acorn Explorers is designed to develop thinking, not test children.

The focus is not on finding a single correct answer or assessing children through traditional marking. Missions are designed to encourage curiosity, reasoning, reflection and discussion, where children can explore ideas, explain their thinking and learn from different perspectives.

Teachers may choose to use children's work as part of classroom discussion, reflection or wider assessment approaches, but Acorn does not require additional marking workload. Most activities are based on open-ended questions where the focus is on depth of thinking, not right or wrong.

The goal is not to measure whether a child has reached the "right" answer.
The goal is to help children become better thinkers.

How does the choice based exploration format ("choose your own adventure") work when the whole class is exploring together?

Acorn Explorers is designed to support both individual exploration and shared classroom journeys.

When children are working independently, they can make their own choices about where their exploration takes them next, following their curiosity and interests.
When a class is exploring together, the teacher can guide the journey in a way that works best for their context.

This might include:

• Teacher-guided choices
  The teacher selects the next pathway based on classroom discussion, curriculum connections or what will best support upcoming learning.

• Class decisions
  The class votes on the next direction, creating opportunities to discuss different perspectives and consider why one path might be chosen over another.

• Explorer choices
  A pupil may be invited to choose the next step as recognition of the qualities Acorn aims to develop, such as curiosity, kindness, courage, collaboration or perseverance. The choice is not a reward for academic achievement, but a celebration of character and contribution.

The important thing is that choice remains meaningful. Children learn that decisions have consequences, different perspectives matter and there is rarely only one way forward.

Taking Acorn into the classroom

Should schools use the Field Journals as books, or individual missions?

Acorn Explorers missions can be experienced in different formats depending on how your school, learners and families prefer to engage with them.

• Field Journal format
  Many schools choose the Field Journal format because it keeps the learning journey together. Children can see their progress, revisit previous thinking and build a personal record of their exploration.

  
  The choice based exploration approach (similar to Choose Your Own Adventure) still works beautifully within the Field Journal format, allowing learners to make meaningful choices about where their exploration takes them next while maintaining a shared journey.

• Individual mission format
  Individual mission sheets provide greater flexibility for schools and families who want to select specific missions, share children's work more easily or celebrate individual achievements.

  
  For some children, completing a mission they are proud of and displaying it at home, sharing it with family or discussing it with others becomes an important part of the learning experience.
  

In classroom environments, some educators prefer the Field Journal format because it keeps children's exploration organised and provides a clear record of their journey over time.

Both formats contain the same Acorn learning experience, they simply offer different ways for children and schools to engage.

What happens when children complete a Field Journal? Is Acorn a one-off experience or an ongoing programme?

Acorn Explorers can work in different ways depending on what a school is looking to achieve.

Some schools may choose a single Field Journal as a focused experience, for example, as a transition journey when children are preparing to move between schools, an enrichment project, or an introduction to the Acorn approach.

Other schools may choose to build Acorn into a longer-term learning journey, where children continue exploring through additional Field Journals and new missions.

The value of Acorn is not simply in completing more missions. It is in how children's thinking develops over time. A mission explored again a year later can create a completely different experience because the learner has changed, their knowledge, confidence, perspectives and ability to make connections have grown.

Each journey helps strengthen the thinking habits that Acorn develops: curiosity, confidence, reflection, reasoning and connection.

Acorn grows with the learner.

Do children move from Emerging Thinkers to Confident Thinkers over time?

Are the thinking pathways like levels that children progress through?

No. The Acorn thinking pathways are not designed as a sequence of levels that children complete and then move beyond.

Emerging Thinkers and Confident Thinkers represent different ways of engaging with exploration, challenge and reflection. They are designed to support children at their current stage of thinking, rather than define what they are capable of based on age or year group.

A child's pathway is not a label or a judgement. It is a way of ensuring that every learner experiences meaningful challenge, builds confidence and develops as a thinker.

As children's confidence, experience and independence grow, they may naturally move towards different levels of challenge — but this happens through developing their thinking, not by simply completing one pathway and moving to the next.

Acorn grows with the learner.

Can children in the same class use different thinking pathways? Do all children in a class need to complete the same version?

No. Acorn Explorers is designed to support different learners within the same shared experience. We don't ask "What level is this child?" but rather "How do we help this child think more deeply?"

Children in the same class may engage with missions at different depths depending on their confidence, experience, independence and current thinking needs.

This does not mean children are separated into fixed groups or identified by ability. Instead, it allows every child to participate in the same exploration while receiving the level of challenge and support that helps them grow.

Many educators already use similar approaches across classroom learning, where children may explore the same topic while responding, reasoning and creating at different levels of depth.

Same mission. Different depth. The whole class shares:

• the same mission;

• the same theme;

• the same real-world context;

• the same discussions.

The difference is in:

• scaffolding;

• independence;

• complexity of reflection;

• depth of reasoning.