STUDENTS in Yate and Winterbourne have joined forces to stage their very own opera.

For the first time since The Ridings Federation of Academies formed in 2009, pupils at Yate and Winterbourne international academies and Woodlands Primary Phase in Yate came together for an all singing, all dancing workshop with the English Touring Opera (ETO).

In total, 50 students worked on the production over the course of last week and on Friday (July 15) they put on two performances of an opera based on the dangerous journey migrants make from the Middle East as they try to enter Europe.

The show, Sand, Sea, Surf performed at Winterbourne Arts Centre, used original material the pupils came up with themselves and featured students as performers, technicians and members of the band.

ETO head of education, Tim Yealland, said: “In the course of the week we are going to try to recreate the traumatic journeys thousands of people make every month from the Middle East to Europe.

“We’ll be creating a lot of the material from scratch, and hope to make a piece that is exciting, with great music, drama and design.”

The federation said the workshops had brought ‘a whole new dimension of performance work’ to the academies.