Backed by David Walliams

The BBC has launched a new comedy writing competition aimed at secondary school students, fronted by David Walliams.

The Britain's Got Talent judge and children's author stars in an online film explaining the Comedy Classroom contest, which aims to use joke writing to improve literacy.

He said: 'I was 12 when I first started writing and performing comedy sketches in my school. They were simple spoofs of TV shows at the time, but immediately I discovered that there's no better feeling in the world than making people laugh. So whether your class is full of budding performers, or they're bursting with brilliant ideas for new comedy sketches – BBC Comedy Classroom is for you.'

The initiative is open to students aged 13 to 15, who could have their work made and broadcast by the BBC this autumn. The winners will also have a comedian pay a visit to their school.

Others backing the competition include Charlie Higson, Marcus Brigstocke, Kerry Howard, Katy Wix and Adil Ray.

There are three categories to enter: Class Joker, for stand-up routines; Class Act for sketches, and Class Comic which seeks comedy picture captions.

Head of BBC Learning, Sinéad Rocks, said: 'We want this competition to provide a fun and inspiring way to engage students by helping them find the funny side of literacy and by demonstrating how literacy is the bedrock of good comedy and comedy writing.

'We hope it will provide some great laughs in classrooms across the UK as well as giving students the opportunity to produce some fantastic entries.'

The National Literacy Trust has produced lesson plans to integrate the competition and comedy writing into the classroom, hitting curriculum requirements for literacy and building on reading, writing and speaking skills.

Jonathan Douglas, director of the charity, says: 'Our research shows that young people don't enjoy writing as much as they enjoy reading. We believe that introducing them to comedy writing can change that.'

More information is available here and entires are open from now until July 24.

BBC comedy controller Shane Allen added: 'There is a great sense of original thinking and authorship in creating comedy as it often involves playing with language, concepts and a degree of lateral thinking. Lots of big name comedy talents are engaged in this and promoting the joy of learning through laughter'

Published: 19 Apr 2016