16 A D&D Club: A Gateway to Student Agency

 A D&D Club: A Gateway to Student Agency

Sometimes, fostering student agency doesn’t require elaborate plans or school-wide initiatives. Sometimes, it just takes observing, listening, and giving students a chance.

Last year, I worked with a group of students who faced significant challenges in finding motivation and purpose in their learning. Over time, many of them had developed a distant relationship with school, often seeing it as a place of routines rather than meaningful experiences. It was a complex starting point for both students and teachers, and it reminded me how essential it is to create learning environments where agency, voice, and purpose are at the center of everything we do.

Then I noticed something: some of them had started reading Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) books. I decided to use that interest as a way in. I suggested they create a D&D club. My only condition? I would support and guide them in the process and supervise when I had time—but the club would be entirely run by them.

And they agreed.

Step one was finding a time slot that worked for all of us. They chose to meet during lunch and eat in the classroom while playing. Next, we drafted an email together to the Head of Primary asking for approval. It included participants, schedule, location, club rules, and defined roles: president, vice president, materials coordinator...

What truly amazed me was how they connected this activity to their academic learning. In the email to leadership, they had even explained (with my support) how the club could support their education:

• Math: using dice, basic addition and subtraction of scores, understanding probabilities.

• Reading & Listening Skills: following and interpreting complex campaigns, engaging in active listening.

• Communication & Collaboration: cooperative decision-making, role distribution, turn-taking, respecting the Dungeon Master's leadership.

• Critical & Creative Thinking: problem-solving, character design, strategic thinking under pressure.

• Organization & Self-Management: autonomous planning, consistent session documentation, honoring shared agreements.

The club was approved.

Over the next few months, they ran it with full autonomy. Each session was logged in a notebook: session topic, attendees, materials used, and whether any incidents occurred. They completed this without reminders. Every day, they set up and cleaned up the space respectfully and independently. In their free time, they brought in their D&D books, read to learn more, created new campaigns, and drew their characters.

Through this simple club, they developed a wide range of Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills in a way that felt authentic, relevant, and entirely student-driven.

César Bona said it best in La Nueva educación:

“If you give a child the opportunity to participate—and even the responsibility to propose something—they’ll plant a tree, lay a tile… They’ll be the first to respect it, and the first to inspire others to do the same.”

Agency doesn’t always come from carefully crafted units or elaborate inquiry cycles. Sometimes, it comes from a simple idea. But for that to happen, students need more than permission—they need trust.

As an educator, I’m more convinced than ever that we need to make space for students to design their own learning, take initiative, and commit to what truly matters to them. When they do, they learn more—and better. Not because the curriculum says so, but because they’ve lived it.

A club can be just a club. Or it can be the door to student agency. The difference is whether we hand them the key.