Students test their skills at Spelling Bee final

Top performers from four secondary schools were put through their paces when the West Norfolk Academies Trust held its annual Spelling Bee contest.Students from Years 7 and 8 across the Trust took part in the event, with participating member high schools including Marshland in West Walton, St Clement’s in Terrington St Clement, Smithdon in Hunstanton and Springwood in King’s Lynn.

“All students in Years 7 and 8 did internal rounds of spelling in their tutor groups,” said Trust English lead Sarah Murkin, who co-ordinated and organised the event.

“Each tutor group put forward their best two spellers to the school’s final. Each school was allowed up to three students to represent them in the Trust final.”

The competing schools take turns to host the Spelling Bee Final, with this year’s event taking place at St Clement’s, where Year 7 students were on hand to support the contestants.

“The final consisted of the finalists sitting in front of a group of students, who were the audience,” said Mrs Murkin. “Each finalist was asked to spell out their word. If they got it right, they went through to the next round.

“Words they had to spell correctly included ‘core’ to ‘chloroplast’, ‘proton’ to ‘perjurer’, and ‘atom’ to ‘ambidextrous’. Other words included ‘phlegmatic’, ‘narcissism’, ‘logorrhea’, up to the more tricky words, such as ‘trichotillomania’.”

Poppy Brockman-Smith, assistant headteacher at St Clement’s, read out the words to be spelled, while the school librarian, Jenny Ford, acted as adjudicator.Fellow librarian Rachel Raffan helped to organise earlier rounds, along with heads of English Jenny Maddocks and Joe Brown from Marshland, Amanda Wright from Smithdon and Lucy Clark from Springwood.After an epic battle, the winner emerged as Daryus Barrett from Marshland High School. The Year 8 student successfully spelled ‘philanthropic’ to earn himself a certificate and the first prize of a Kindle Fire.