The name says it all. Developing emotion through nurture. The Den is an environment where pupils feel safe but can also access emotional literacy as well as learning how to improve social and communication skills and their academic achievement. Inside The DEN we offer ELSA sessions, literacy and numeracy interventions and help pupils communicate sociably by means of Lego Therapy and nurture techniques. The pupils thoroughly enjoy their experiences in The DEN and it helps to keep their minds active making friendship bracelets, fairy gardens, lego models, hama beads, sewing, reading and being a maths teacher I must add practising their basic math skills. At times it actually comes to the point at the end of the Lego Therapy sessions that the pupils feel so fulfilled with their achievements of completing Lego models that we have to display them rather than taking them apart. We have also recently started to develop Pontypridd High School rocks where the pupils paint their emotions on rocks and hide them around the school grounds for others to find and link to social media.

Thank you to our special guests Esther Thomas, Director of Education and Lifelong Learning and Lynda Davies, Mayor of Pontypridd for coming along to open our outstanding facility.