Year 7 and Year 8 Spelling Bee

On Wednesday 24 June (Year 7) and on Wednesday 1 July (Year 8) we celebrated the most exciting MFL competition event at Queens’ school. 

Although many of our year 7s and Y8s wanted to take part in this exciting contest, only a few of them were able to make it to the final: after four weeks of preparation and practise in part of the Spanish lessons, one pupil from each form was selected by their Spanish teacher amongst all the students in their form to represent them.

Rumours and speculations kept going around in the weeks before the competition, about which candidate(s) could spell the highest amount of words in Spanish in the time given. Someone said there was one student who spelled 29 words in one minute. Absolutely impressive!!!

Year 7 contestants: 
David Tofan (7AB), Aurora Shoebottom (7AE), Ishaan Tiwari (7FD), Rose Sangster (7FX), Ruby Mistry (7TC), Caoimhe Morris (7TM), Maya Nedeloi (7SH), Aaliyan Hummad (7SN) and Amelia Gheorge (7SW).

Year 8 contestants:
Karen Sopi (8AB), Hannah Finch (8AE), Tim Kukla (8AL), Nathan Alfred (8FD), Paulo Guerra Barbosa (8FX), Rayan Romani (8SN), Oliver McKay (8SW), Adam Jabarkhyl (8TC) and Inaaya Hussain (8TM).

The challenge? To spell the highest number of words in sixty seconds.

The rules? After hearing a word in English, students needed to give the meaning of that word in Spanish and spell it, including accents and spaces between words!! And they could only pass a maximum of three times!! 

Our outstanding nine finalists competed in front of their whole Year group, their Director of Learning and their form tutors. 

The judges? The toughest and most ruthless ones that we could have chosen: Mr Spada and Ms Page-Gibby.

The event started with an overview of the Spelling Bee: its purpose, its meaning, the most difficult Spelling Bee words, the longest word spelt in a Spelling Bee, the very first Spelling Bee winner (and winning word), fun facts about the competition, the USA National Spelling Bee champion 2026 (with a video demonstration of his rapid-fire "spell-off" that led him to winning), and the recipe to succeed in a Spelling Bee (gathered from interviews with USA Spelling Bee contestants’ coaches).

Following this, Miss Montes called the contestants to get the Queens’ competition started. One by one, the participants showed a wonderful display of their ability to memorise and remember the meanings of English words in Spanish, but also their flair when spelling words in Spanish at a very fast speed!

Although all the competitors did a FANTÁSTICO TRABAJO (amazing job), only three could win. After our wonderful judges counted, compared and deliberated, the results were shared with the crowd.

Year 7 winners:
3rd position with 17 words: Rose Sangster (7FX)
2nd position, with 20 words: Ruby Mistry (7TC)
1st position, with 22 words: Maya Nedeloi (7SH)

Year 8 winners:
3rd position, with 17 words: Paulo Guerra Barbosa (8FX)
2nd position, with 19 words: Karen Sopi (8AB)
1st position, with 21 words: Hannah Finch (8AE)

Well done to our brave contestants for showing all of our STAR values and for having the determination, the resilience and the courage to stand in front of hundreds of people to dare to be great! And well done to all Year 7 students for practising at home and in lessons during the last few weeks and for being a great support on the day of the competition. 

And a big ENHORABUENA (congratulations) to our winners!!!!!

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