Class Comedians Programme:• aims to introduce students to the performing arts;• employs professional stand up comedians and actors to work

with students in a series of workshops to develop their own comedy set which is performed as part of the Comedy Festival;

• operates nationally and is open to all Secondary School students;

• is funded by Local Councils through their Arts Programmes.

Background to the involvement of five M*** College students with high needs.

• (April 2015) Class Comedians tutor contacted me via a mutual friend to see whether any M*** College students would like to join the programme. They had approached another teacher at the College who had not actioned the request within the school.

• It was too late to advertise the programme across the school but I asked if, in the future, they would consider including students with high needs.

• CC tutor very interested and invited us to the 2015 CC performance. I attended this with 6 students, 5 of whom enjoyed it and wished to take part in future (1 decided it was not for him).

• Term 2: met with Tutor to discuss the students who were interested and how we could best support their inclusion in the programme.

• Term 3: Worked with CC administration to submit a funding bid to P City Council that would allow for a series of specific workshops Term 1 2016 that would feed our five students into the general programme.

• Term 3 (holidays): 5 students attend workshops with students who had gone through the CC programme earlier that year. These ‘experienced class comedians’ were involved in a ‘master class’ session during the school holidays. They therefore could act as ‘tuakana’ to our students in the ways described in the next slides.

Workshop programme (3 hours)

1. Experienced class comedians give a short performance of their new material in front of workshop.

2. Students pair off and complete creative activities (see next slide for details).

3. Novice class comedians practise and develop their material together with tutor guidance.

4. Novice class comedians give a short performance of their new material in front of workshop.

5. Everyone provides feedback and encouragement.

Creative activities

These 3 exercises are completed in pairs: ‘experienced class comedian’ with ‘novice class comedian’. 1.Write down 3 things that annoy you (all feedback to group).2.Write down 3 things that you love (all feedback to group)3.Choose one topic and add detail to it through discussion with partner. (Tutor emphasises importance of asking questions).4.Write a joke – (Tutor emphasises explanation of ‘rule of three’ by ‘experienced class comedian’.

Students work in pairs – feedback to group

Student 1: First Brainstorm

Things that annoy me.

Student 1: Detail added to topic

Detail added to one of students’ ‘loves’ i.e. Halloween, through discussion/questions with partners.

Student 1: Developed ‘joke’

Students 1 & 2 practise

Student 1: Performance

Student 2: Brainstorm

Things that annoy me. Teacher support to record these ideas as Student 2 has significant communication impairments . I wanted him to focus on the discussion with his partner rather than having to also have the added cognitive load of recording his ideas in writing. Looking back, I realise my presence stifled his interaction with his partner and I wish I had hung back and suggested to his partner that he records Student 2’s ideas. I was a barrier to the social side of this activity.

Student 2: Detail added to topic

Detail added to one of students’ ‘loves’ i.e. his Mum, through discussion/questions with partner/teacher.

Student 2: Developed ‘joke’

Tutor guided students’ development of idea to include a physical ‘look’ of anger/horror should anyone ask for a bite of his pie. This played to Student 2’s strengths. He has a fantastically expressive face and loves to entertain. It got a big laugh when he performed his set! Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of his performance (I was ‘feeding him his lines’ to aid his memory following the tutor’s advice; a common theatrical practise! I also did this for Student 3 at her request).

Student 3: Brainstorm

Things that annoy me.Student 3 is a very reluctant writer who displays dyslexic behaviours and generally has difficulty expressing herself in writing, at times she won’t even try. I was therefore gobsmacked (in a very good way) when she immediately picked up a pencil to complete this activity.

Student 3: Detail added to topic

‘Experienced class comedian’ looks to have provided support to student when writing down ideas.

Student 3: Developed Joke

‘Experienced class comedian’ provided lots of support to student 3 to help her frame her ideas and to transcribe her ideas. They worked on it for ages with lots of backwards and forwards discussion and laughter! It was great to see.

Student 3: Performance

Student 3 was the first of the ‘novice class comedians’ to perform (at her own insistence!) She even sang a snippet from a song! Great work.

Other ‘novice class comedian’ performances

Student 4 had a great way to introduce herself “Hi my name is ………; you know, like the car!” and joked about losing weight, since moving from Auckland to Porirua which doesn’t have a Carl’s Junior!

Student 5 compared Breaking Bad with another popular zombie film and managed to squeeze in a joke about a popular maths teacher at school!

Student comments after the workshop

We debriefed in McDonalds – the students were buzzing and comments included:• Big thumbs up and smile (student 2)• “We should do this at school” (student 5)• “Can we do it again – it was easy!” (student 3)• “S**k [students’ partner] was real funny [related a story]”

(student 4)• “Loved it” (student 1)All students want to keep developing their jokes, practise their performances and give a mini-show to our class.

Feedback I sent to CC tutor