State's best spellers to be crowned
The countdown is on to find the best spellers in NSW, with 100 student finalists going letter-to-letter in the Premier’s Spelling Bee state final today.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian congratulated all finalists, who will spend the day competing to be crowned Junior (years 3 and 4) or Senior (years 5 and 6) Spelling Bee State Champion.
“The Spelling Bee is always a highlight on the education calendar and a great way for students to show their literacy skills,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“To see these young students so enthusiastically challenge themselves to master language gives me great confidence in our schools and the passion for learning our teachers instill. To have made it through to the state final is an extraordinary achievement and I congratulate all the competitors for reaching this level.”
The 2018 Premier’s Spelling Bee has seen a record participation of 170,000 students from almost 1,000 public schools in NSW.
Students needed to win their school, zone and regional finals to qualify for today’s State Final. This included correctly spelling words such as embargo, cavalcade, notary and scrupulous in the Junior competition, and besotted, expostulate, hereditary and subservient in the Senior competition.
Nine schools have finalists in both the senior and junior competition:
- Albury Public School
- Georges Hall Public School
- Glenmore Park Public School
- Gosford Public School
- Holsworthy Public School
- Jerrabomberra Public School
- Orange Public School
- Sturt Public School
- Tamworth Public School
NSW students perform strongly in spelling in NAPLAN (the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy). This year NSW was ranked first in Australia in spelling across all year groups (Years 3, 5, 7 and 9).