IT’S showtime for thousands of public school students from across New South Wales today, including Moree Secondary College’s Kyla-Belle Roberts.
Students will sing, dance, sing, play, flip and hang from the ceiling at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena for the 2025 Schools Spectacular today and tomorrow.
Known as the world’s largest amateur variety show, Schools Spectacular will feature 5500 Kindergarten to Year 12 students from almost 400 schools who have travelled up to 800 kilometres to come together over four spectacular performances on Friday, November 28 and Saturday, November 29.
Moree singer and musician, Kyla-Belle Roberts, will perform as a feature artist. She said being selected as a featured artist for School Spectacular “is such crazy thought”.
Original music is a key component of the 2025 production with Kyla-Belle, 2025 Triple J Unearthed Indigenous Artist of the Year, performing her song Scars for the first time with backing vocals and an orchestral accompaniment.
Schools Spectacular features four shows over two days, at 11am and 7pm today and 1pm and 7pm tomorrow.
With dazzling pyrotechnics, suspended circus acts, costumes by Academy Award-winning designer Tim Chappel and toe-tapping music, the 42nd Schools Spectacular has something for the whole family to enjoy.
Songs this year range from Steve’s Lava Chicken from A Minecraft Movie to We’re in the Money from The Broadway Musical 42nd Street, Jai Ho from the 2008 hit movie Slumdog Millionaire, Blackbird by The Beatles and Defying Gravity from Wicked the Musical.
Creative Director Sonja Sjolander said this year’s show is focused on the student voice more than ever before.
“The 2025 show theme ‘Remarkable’ will explore what it means to stand out, speak up, and shine – a fitting motif for the trailblazing students who are leading this show,” she said.
“Whether it’s a heartfelt solo, a dazzling instrumental, or a choreographed group number, these students will blow you away.”
The arena show’s closing number Remarkable was written and composed by featured vocalist Ocean Lim from Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School, and will be performed by all 5500 students.
Ocean performed another original song Follow your Dreams for King Charles III and Queen Camilla during their visit to the Sydney Opera House Forecourt in October, 2024.
Just outside the doors of Qudos Bank Arena is entertainment and activity hub, SpecFest, where a flashmob of more than 500 students will dance to Isabella Laga’aia’s original song Remarkable, a track she wrote, composed and sings on for this special occasion.
Also on offer will be performances by NSW Public Schools Millenium Marching Band and solo and ensemble performances, Film By SpecFest viewings in the SpecFest gallery and rural and remote band competition Surround Sound.
