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Posted on December 12th 2024
Year 7's Finest Spellers Compete in Spelling Bee
This week saw the latest annual Spelling Bee competition, drawing in the Harris Federation's finest Year 7 spellers to compete for the top prize.
Our five-man team joined the Harris Girls' Academy East Dulwich team en route to Harris Ockenden. Many thanks to Ms Almond and Mr Brown from Harris Dulwich Girls for providing us with transport and the opportunity for all students to have a mini competition in preparation for the real thing during the journey.
Arriving just over the border into Essex, alongside 12 other eager Harris academy teams, the nervous tension rose as our team of Othniel, Gordon, Nathan, Samuel and Hristo entered the first round, spelling one of 500 words they had been asked to learn in anticipation of the competition.
Here is a selection of the words that boys were asked to spell.
- conscientious
- February
- tangible
- occurrence
- liaise
Progressing from the team round each individual was given the opportunity to shine, with Sam proving himself a worthy adversary to all comers in the knockout round. He remained the last man standing against all the other teams, earning HBAED an excellent 20 points towards our final total.
The final table was remarkably close. Our team was a very creditable sixth place, with the top three places on the podium occupied by:
- 1st Place Harris Academy Peckham
- 2nd Place Harris Academy Beckenham
- 3rd Place Harris Academy Ockenden
Thanks to Harris Ockenden for making us so welcome.
Richard Exley, English Teacher
The word that caused the most hilarity was 'philandering'. As part of the rules the students can ask the questioner to put the word into a sentence, which caused the panel of teachers much amusement.
Our team finished a very creditable sixth place and represented our academy superbly.
