Inter-School Spelling Bee

As part of our work to promote high standards of spelling throughout the school, we will be holding again our local inter-school ‘Spelling Bee’ competition from Years 1 to 6. We feel that this will be a motivating and fun way to celebrate the achievements of all the children.  We will be joining with our SWAT (Schools Working and Achieving Together) cluster that consists of twelve other local primary schools.  The spelling competition semi-final and final will include children from all thirteen schools.

Each year group will have a list of common exception words to learn which are from the National Curriculum and specific to their age range; these will be sent home with your child in the next couple of days. The children will have already practised some of these words during the autumn term but this will be a useful opportunity to ensure that they have remembered these spellings.  Each class teacher will also provide opportunities for the children to practise spelling these orally throughout the autumn/spring term.

The ‘Spelling Bee’ will run as follows:

Round One – Wednesday, 1^st February

Spelling Bee competitions will take place in school. Children will have two minutes to spell as many words aloud as they can correctly.  A point will be awarded for each correct spelling.  The child who receives the highest point score from each year group will go through to the semi-final.

Semi-Final – Date TBC (March 2023).  (Invitations will be sent to the parents of the children who have made it through to the semi-final). 

The Wellfield winners will participate in the semi-final and will compete against children from Whittlefield Primary & Padiham Green Primary School.  The competition will follow the same format as round one in which the children have two minutes to spell as many words aloud as they can correctly.  Again, all the words will be taken from the word lists provided.  At the end of the semi-final, there will be one winner from each year group.  These children will then go to the final to compete against the winners of the other semi-final competitions held throughout the SWAT cluster.

Final – Tuesday, 11^th July.  Venue: ACE Centre, Nelson. (Invitations will be sent to the parents of the children who have made it through to the final). 

The winners from the SWAT semi-finals will compete to be the ‘Spelling Bee’ champion.  A new word list for the children to practise will be issued before May half term. The finalists will need to compete against other schools to spell as many words as they can correctly (random order) in two minutes.  The final will be in the same format of a traditional Spelling Bee and spellings will need to be said aloud in front of an audience. 

We believe that this structure gives all children the opportunity to take part in a fun event whilst reinforcing important work on spelling.  However, if you have any concerns or questions, please do speak to your class teacher.

We really hope that some of our children make it to the SWAT final!  Thank you for your support.