For six weeks I worked with a class of students with various learning difficulties/disabilities. In these classes/workshops the aim was to contribute some sort of stimulus which would enable the students to advance their use of cognitive and motor development skills. In the short space of time I worked with these students I feel that quite a lot was achieved. the first few weeks were used in getting to know the students better, I joined in the warm-ups with them and did some activities which included the use of a ball which helped in trying to develop the students communication, concentration and movement skills. all warm-ups required the students to pay close attention as the instructor (Margaret McNeil), performed moves to follow. during the first few weeks I put myself at the back of the class so that I could observe the other students and I could see that many of them were very focussed and concentrating on what was being said and done. some students required a little friendly persuasion to join in. A couple of students were visually impaired and some suffered from loss of hearing and one student in particular had severe hearing and sight loss but I was impressed with how keen he was to join in, I could see that he was watching the person in front of him rather than the instructor so that he could follow the warm-up exercise.

I was readily accepted into the close-knit group by the other students and it wasn't long before we had planned to do an improvised piece called 'UP BY THE MOUNTAIN'. For this small in-house production, the main resource, which we used was from an eight-line poem of the same title...

There were no props involved for this devised piece other than the jackets and bags that we used when travelling up and down the mountain. The venue was the workblock at the James Watt College and there were approx. 12 adult students involved. My main aim was to get as much out of the students and of being with them as possible during my short space of time with them. The students were asked questions regarding the poem before devising began as we wanted them to use their imagination as much as possible and the poem was split into stages, we would have a day out, go for a hike up the mountain, take in the sights and then come down again. we would then play on the beach and some would go for a swim. a window from a nearby house would be smashed, blame would be cast on another individual but 'Tommy' would be caught out and get into serious trouble. that was the plan but what we eventually got was far better than I could have imagined.

Everything that we did had a main focus on the imagination of the students and starting out on this devised piece we imagined that we were walking up alongside a mountain. when we reached the top we all stood around and gazed for miles and miles. We sparked off some of the students imaginations by stating what we could see and then asking them what they could see. buildings, houses (belonging to the students etc.) were mentioned as was the beach down below. Movement at this stage was minimal with only one or two of the other students using their hands to gaze into the distance. Travelling back down the mountain was not a major feat for the students the first time around - two seconds and they were back down the mountain so we changed this the second tie around and made it a lot slower and sang songs on the way down. At first nothing much happened at the beach so stimulus was provided to try and spark off the students imaginations. most students just sat back and relaxed so at this point we decided to allocate character roles for a couple of the students.

We asked the students about the characters in the piece we were devising and who they would like to go as well as what kind of characters they'd like to be. Casting in the early stages of this piece didn't quite go as smoothly as hoped for (through no wrong doing or interpretation by the students) but we got there eventually. The second time around for Up by the Mountain was much better. At the arrival at the top this time, it was decided that we would all sit down for a rest whilst taking in the view. This worked a lot better and allowed for further stimulus of the students imagination as we went about eating and drinking refreshments. There was a lot of movement involved here by all of the students as items were passed around. for example drinks and eatables were taken by students and either kept, passed along or given back. There were more students acknowledging the what was around them this time and using facial expressions and hand movements relating to the buildings, places and other sights that they could see around them. There was also other conversational talk relating to things like the weather and what they were going to do when they reached the beach. Back down at the bottom of the mountain by the beach, there was even more participation by the students with everyone wanting to be a part of what was going on. At first there was maybe a little too much going on but it was nice to see all the students participating in their own way. Now, at the bottom of the mountain, Tommy and Tommy's friend (Sandy) went away to throw stones while others relaxed and some looked on. A window of a nearby house was smashed and Sandy & Tommy went into hiding. Tommy was caught and ended up in big trouble.