Students who teamed up with Shaun the Sheep animator David Bunting and German teenagers have won an European award for a short film they produced.

Pupils at Titus Salt School and Amandus-Abendroth Gymnasium in northern Germany won the prize for their 11 minute video called The Young Musicians of CuxAire.

It was one of 342 nominations from 37 countries at the MEDEA Awards – which recognise innovation in the use of media in education – where it took the European Collaboration title at a ceremony held in Brussels.

The project, which involved 22 students from each country, started in late 2010 and was funded by the Comenius Programme, which encourages overseas partnerships between schools.

Mr Bunting, who is working on CBeebies programme Chuggington, said: “This was a fantastic way to teach the students about the language, culture and history of a different country. The students formed lasting friendships through the process of film making.”

The film is a short story about four troubled teenagers from Saltaire and Cuxhaven who have little musical talent. They enter a magical world, CuxAire, triggered by images of the German folktale ‘The Musicians of Bremen’.

The film is a modern twist on a 200 year-old classic and borrows the philosophy of the two schools figureheads, Sir Titus Salt and Amandus Augustus Abendroth, the Mayor of Hamburg in the 1800s.

Project Co-ordinator at the Saltaire school Rachel Wilson said she was “delighted” to have won the award which she collected this month.

She said David Bunting has worked with the school before.

“He’s very good at what he does and is very good at working with children. He got really involved and ended up com