Discovery Den

The Discovery Den is a dedicated provision within our school that offers a highly personalised and nurturing environment for pupils with more complex needs. Through a carefully adapted curriculum, we ensure that learning is meaningful, accessible and focused on developing key skills such as communication, independence and emotional regulation.

Our skilled staff provide targeted support, using a range of specialist strategies and resources to meet individual needs. The provision places a strong emphasis on inclusion, enabling pupils to engage with the wider school community where appropriate, while also benefiting from bespoke teaching approaches.

The Discovery Den reflects our commitment to ensuring that every child receives a high-quality education that is tailored to their needs, enabling them to make strong progress from their starting points and thrive both academically and personally.

Take a look below at a selection of the activities and events in the Discovery Den.  

Aliens Love Underpants

We enjoyed this story so much. We have spent a lot of time playing in our alien moon sand sensory tray, where we made some space ships for the aliens. We designed some pants for the aliens. We think they would really like them! In English we completed a pants letter match and in Maths we tried a space count activity.

The King's Pants

In the Discovery Den, we have been reading The King's Pants and we have been looking at King Charles and castles. We have enjoyed a castle trace activity and making a castle from 2D shapes. We collaged a flag from lots of pictures of things linked to London and the King. We used pegs in maths to add crowns to help with our counting.

Jack and the Beanstalk

We have been reading Jack and the Beanstalk and really enjoyed this book. We have practised picking up magic beans with tweezers in our sensory tray. We have had fun finger painting a Jack and the Beanstalk scene. In maths we had a magic bean number match and a magic bean and leaf count. But the most fun was defiantly in art - we had a giant beanstalk and we painted our feet and used our foot prints as leaves. We had the most fun running up and down the beanstalk.

Oliver's Vegetables

We have been reading Oliver's Vegetables, so we have been looking at vegetables and how they grow. Everyone really enjoyed our garden sensory tray where we potted vegetables, buried them and raked the soil. In maths we looked at ordering vegetables in size order. We played vegetable pairs and worked very hard on our vegetable themed pencil control activity. We designed our own vegetable, which had some very funny faces.

Easter-themed activities

We enjoyed a variety of Easter-related activities linked to English, maths and art such as our Easter sensory tray, Easter egg number match, potato masher chicks, shape chicks, painted egg rolling, Easter basket colour match, Easter egg handwriting practise and an Easter egg letter search. As you can tell, we have been very busy but had lots of fun painted egg rolling was definitely one of our favourite jobs to do.

The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza

We looked at the story 'The little Red Hen Makes a Pizza'. We completed some pizza maths where we put some counters on our pizza to match the numbers. Out tough tray was a giant pizza where we created a giant pizza, just like the Little Red Hen story! We finished off by making our own pizza and even rolled out the dough!

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

We enjoyed building bridges for the goats to cross safely. In maths we looked at ordering the goats from smallest to largest and we also built a number bridge. Our favourite activity was designing our own trolls - even choosing his toenails! 

The Three Little Pigs

After the story, we had a sensory tray where we built houses. We used counters in maths, did some fantastic finger painting and made some pig cup cakes, which were delicious.

World Book Day

The whole school (from Nursery to Year 6) based their activities on the book 'Wild Book Day'. We also enjoyed dressing up as our favourite book character.

Chinese New Year

To mark Chinese New Year, we had a themed sensory tray where we used tweezers to develop our fine-motor skills and pick out animals. We made some Chinese New Year hand print dragons and masks.

Pancake Day

We enjoyed smelling and tasting some delicious pancakes, as well completing some pancake-themed memory games, maths and English tasks.

Valentine's Day

We had a Valentines sensory tray that everyone enjoyed pouring and patting our valentines mixture. We had great fun matching our heart patterns. In maths we matched hearts with numbers on to their corresponding dots. Our Valentines shadow game was a definite favourite!

The Gingerbread Man fairy tale

We have been looking at The Gingerbread Man story. We coloured our own gingerbread man pictures, we fixed a gingerbread man picture, we made a huge floor sized printing and best of all, we decorated and ate our own gingerbread man.

Winter Hats

The weather is really cold, so we designed our own winter hats and had fun in the snow!

Cold Lands and Animals

In the Discovery Den, we have been looking at cold lands and animals that live in these places. We made Arctic sensory bins one had icebergs for our penguin and polar bear friends to float on. One had some very soft, white snow and the last one had some very cold ice cubes in. We really enjoyed this activity and felt the different textures and temperatures.

Christmas Fun

We joined in with school celebrations. We came to school wearing our favourite Christmas jumper, enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch, danced in the hall for the Christmas party and even had a visit from Santa!