Spelling Bee National Final 2015

A huge well done to Freddie L in Year 7 for proudly representing NSB at the National Finals of the Spelling Bee Competition at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge on the afternoon of Friday 3rd July. The event was organised for the fifth year running by Routes into Languages, a consortium of universities working together with schools to enthuse people to study languages.

After winning with flying colours the second prize for the northeast for Spanish back in April, Freddie went through to the national finals. The figures were staggering and highlight how well Freddie did to make it that far: only 105 pupils had got through to the final, when almost 75,000 had started the competition and, for Spanish, there were 35 out of 22,000 pupils!

Freddie competed against other schools from up and down the country. He had to learn a total of 200 Spanish words and their spellings. Participants were given one minute to spell correctly as many words as possible in front of the judges and the audience. A nerve-racking experience but Freddie did not get stage fright and put on a superb performance: 16 words spelt correctly in a minute!

Here is an account of the event by Freddie himself:
“On Friday 3rd July, instead of being at Prize Day, I was on a train to Cambridge to take part in the National Spelling Bee Final for Spanish. After almost 3 hours we arrived at Cambridge station and walked to the venue. It was a very hot day and over 100 pupils gathered to register and await the competition, 35 for Spanish.

Having registered and had refreshments, we assembled in the lecture theatre and were welcomed. Over 75,000 pupils had entered the competition (22,000 in Spanish) and so it was amazing to get to the final stage – not without a lot of practice, both at school and home! We were told the rules of the competition and then I took part in round 1. I managed to say and spell 16 words in 1 minute which was my personal best, however the 4 people who went through to the final spelled 18 or more. The eventual winner got 20 in 1 minute.

After squeezing onto the very crowded train to Peterborough, we got on the train back to Newcastle, together with the Gosforth Academy pupils and staff that had befriended us on the journey down. By the time we arrived back in Newcastle at 9.45pm, I was ready to start my summer holidays!

I’d like to thank Mr Dixon, Mr Drax and Ms Membrado for all the help and encouragement they gave me. Ms Membrado might be pleased to hear that the European Commission and Routes into Languages are now running a translation competition for Years 8 and 9!”

Thanks to our spelling bee for his tremendous effort and achievement and being such a fantastic ambassador for NSB throughout the competition.