A message from the Principal
Celebration of the Arts 2026
We are very excited to officially launch Celebration of the Arts 2026 and reveal this year’s theme and poster. After months of creativity, learning and preparation across the school, we can now introduce Tell Me a Story…
What is Celebration of the Arts?
For more than 25 years, Celebration of the Arts (COTA) has been a special part of life at SKiPPS. While the event has changed and evolved over the years, its purpose has remained the same: to bring our Visual Arts and Performing Arts programs together and give every student the opportunity to create, perform and celebrate the Arts as a school community.
Each year, COTA has a different theme, which becomes the focus of our Visual Arts and Performing Arts curriculum during Term 3. Students explore the theme through their learning in both Arts areas, with their work coming together in Term 4 for our whole school Celebration of the Arts. No two COTAs are ever quite the same!
This year’s theme is “Tell Me a Story…”, inspired by the ancient collection of tales One Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights) and its famous storyteller, Scheherazade. In the original story, Scheherazade tells a new story each night to King Shahryar, which has also given us a royal thread to explore through our Visual Arts program.
During Term 3, students have been investigating symbols and imagery associated with royalty, including crowns, castles, kings and queens, while our Performing Arts program has explored storytelling through music, movement, dance and performance.
This year, COTA will be held on Thursday 22nd October, with our after-school celebration taking place here at SKiPPS. There will be performances in the quadrangle alongside a mini art show. Every student from Foundation to Year 6 will perform and will also have artwork on display, making COTA a truly whole school celebration. Our wonderful SKiPPS Orchestra will also be part of the evening’s performances.
Some of our older students will also have the opportunity to showcase work they have developed with visiting professional performers. Our Year 3 and 4 students will perform with the African drummers they first worked with earlier in the year as part of our Harmony Week celebrations, while our Year 5 and 6 students will perform pieces developed with the hip hop dance instructors from STOMP.
These collaborations give students the opportunity to learn from other professional artists and then bring those experiences back to share with our whole school community.
COTA isn’t designed to be a formal sit-down concert. It is a relaxed community evening, with breaks throughout the program so students and families can catch up, explore the artwork, have some dinner and enjoy being together. Our Parents Association SKiPPA supports the evening by organising food and refreshments. Families, friends and members of our wider school community are all warmly invited to come along and join the celebrations.
Although COTA has been running at SKiPPS since at least 2000, it continues to change from year to year. This will be Audrey’s first COTA as our Performing Arts teacher and Chantel’s ninth as our Visual Arts teacher.
Performance times and student meeting times will be shared early next term once the final program has been confirmed. We will also send home costume information for each year level before the holidays, giving families plenty of time to organise what students will need.
Most importantly, COTA is about celebrating the creativity of our students and bringing our community together through the Arts. We can’t wait to welcome everyone to SKiPPS on Thursday 22nd October and share what our students have been creating, rehearsing, and preparing for Tell Me a Story…
We’d love some extra hands to help bring COTA to life! If you can help with setting up the art show in the weeks leading up to or the stage on the day of the event, please email Audrey or Chantel. We’d love to hear from you!
Audrey.Klein@education.vic.gov.au
Chantel.Jose@education.vic.gov.au
COTA Poster
This year’s Tell Me a Story… poster is a celebration of our students’ creativity too!
The design has been created by Chantel and features selections of artwork created by students from across the school as part of their COTA Visual Arts learning.
Bringing these individual pieces together into one design gives a little preview of the stories, characters, and royal imagery you’ll see throughout our COTA art show in October.
Put the 22 October into your diaries now as you won't want to miss this. We can't wait to share it with you.
Thanks,
Neil Scott
Principal