Gene Louw Primary Spelling Bee
26 August 2021
Gene Louw Primary in Durbanville recently took a road less travelled and held their very first English Spelling Bee Competition for Grade 6 and Grade 7 learners.
All the learners, irrespective of home language, wrote a preliminary spelling test in the first week of Term 3. With the support of the class teachers, they sifted out the top 24 spellers in Grade 6 and the top 24 spellers in Grade 7. The 48 learners received a comprehensive word list for their grade competition. They had a week to study the words and learn to pronounce the words correctly.
The Grade 6 Competition took place on Tuesday, 10 August. It was an epic battle and the learners’ spelling ability astounded all present. In the end the winner was Gia van der Poll and the second place belongs to two learners, Leila Garcia and Wikus Visser. The Grade 7 Competition took place on Wednesday, 11 August. The competition was strong until the very end. Chris de Wit won the competition after two rounds of “sudden death”, which are the rounds of unseen words. Bianca Murray hung in there and finished in second place after this nail-biting battle.
The enormous success of this first attempt has secured the Spelling Bee as an annual event from now on for Gene Louw.
Group picture: Spelling Bee judges and organisers
