The Class Comedians Programme aims to introduce students to performing arts through comedy workshops run by professional comedians and actors. A tutor from the programme contacted the author to see if students from their school, including those with high needs, would be interested. Five students with high needs attended an initial performance and workshops. The workshops involved brainstorming comedy topics, developing jokes in pairs with more experienced students, and performing material for feedback. All students enjoyed participating and wanted to continue developing their comedy skills.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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’.

5. Students work in pairs –
feedback to group

6. Student 1: First Brainstorm
Things that annoy me.

7. Student 1: Detail added to topic
Detail added to one of students’ ‘loves’ i.e. Halloween,
through discussion/questions with partners.

8. Student 1: Developed ‘joke’

9. Students 1 & 2 practise

10. Student 1: Performance

11. 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.

12. Student 2: Detail added to topic
Detail added to one of students’ ‘loves’ i.e. his Mum, through discussion/questions
with partner/teacher.

13. 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).

14. 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.

15. Student 3: Detail added to topic
‘Experienced class comedian’ looks to have provided support to student when writing
down ideas.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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!

19. 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.

20. Feedback I sent to CC tutor