Opera Start in Schools
The Opera Start model has been used and refined in more than 20 secondary and primary schools to date and each programme is tailored to best address the needs of the students. It has proved highly effective, both educationally and socially.
The main educational aims are to help the participants realise their own creativity, develop their voices and appreciate the linkage between what they are creating and an established operatic work.
Socially, the project aims to stimulate creative thinking, develop interpersonal skills through co-operation and teamwork and build self-confidence.
An evaluation of the Opera Start approach by Nottingham Trent University described the students as “apprentices who are gradually inducted into a new community in which they too can become expert.”
The experience has been inspirational for many young people, including some who have failed to engage with more 
traditional teaching methods and become disaffected and difficult in the school environment. A few have even been inspired to develop their newfound interest in music and join the Magdala 
Chorus!
The young students are not the only people to benefit from the Opera Start programme. Members of the Chorus take part as team leaders, mentors, prop makers, improvisers and performers, developing, as they do, their own creative and interactive abilities which can then be applied in many other settings.
Recent Schools Opera Start programmes have included:
- Mulberry Bush School, Oxford
- Djanogly City Academy
- Radford Primary School
- Stathern Primary School
- Richard Bonington Primary School
