AN OPEN air museum will come alive to the sound of music when about 2,500 children from 80 schools join in a festival of song and dance.

Small groups of children will busk throughout the day at the Beamish Museum, County Durham, on Sunday, July 2.

The grand finale will involve all the participants joined in song and dancing in what may be the world's largest Circassian Circle

There will be performances in the award-winning town, as well as at the Colliery Village, Home Farm, Pockerley Manor Gardens and the 1825 Railway.

All the children taking part in the festival are aged between six and 18, with the majority being just ten and 11 years old.

In addition to the children's performances, there will be a series of short concerts by well-known performers, including the Old Rope String Band, Sandra Kerr, Alistair Anderson, the Fosbrooks and many more.

The Folkworks Youth Festival at Beamish is the culmination of the four-year Full House project, instigated by Folkworks and sponsored by the Newcastle Building Society.

One hundred teachers from across the region have been trained in the North's rich repertoire of music, song and dance, by acknowledged experts in their fields.

The teachers took their new knowledge back to the classroom.

Many of the children have taken part in smaller Full House festivals, as well as organising their own school events.