School launches Dungeons & Dragons games for pupils

Pupils at the Sheldon School in Chippenham have enjoyed the after-school Dungeons and Dragons games

A school has started Dungeons & Dragons sessions after lessons to help boost its students' problem solving skills.

The games were started by Ben Davies, a maths teacher at Sheldon School in Chippenham, Wiltshire.

"In the game, you can choose to do anything and that freedom in building self-esteem is fantastic for our pupils," he said.

Dungeons and Dragons is a globally popular game, first launched in 1974, which sees players assume the role of different characters in a fantasy board game world.

The games are played by year eight students every Tuesday after school, but have become so popular that the school is looking to expand them to allow more students to take part.

One of the pupils taking part, Rojus, said the games allowed him to "be as creative as we want.

"With Dungeons & Dragons you can do basically whatever you want to do and be whoever you want to be.

"We don't think that creatively in real life, but Dungeons & Dragons is all about imagination, and it's great to play with friends," he said.

Rojus said the games had challenged him to think creatively

Mr Davies grew up playing the cult board game as a teenager, and was keen to introduce it to a new generation of students.

"It boosts confidence and encourages the children to believe in their abilities," he said.

"Everyone gets a turn to try out different things, and it builds a lot of different skills like resilience, maths and problem solving.

"We began by playing a simple board game at entry level, and I'm now running a longer campaign with one group and one of our year eight pupils is a dungeon master.

"Nobody is being themselves, they are playing as their characters, so they aren't being judged for being themselves and students just enjoy the journey," he added.