School House Outspells all

Last Friday, the Junior School boys from Years 3 to 6 gathered in the GBR Hall for the annual House Spelling Competition. One boy from each year level represented his house, forming a team of four boys who would work to gain as many points as possible.

The quick-fire nature of the competition had the leading house change multiple times. As the scores were only shown briefly between rounds, the audience had to guess which house had taken the lead. Coming into the Kahoot round, where boys play an online quiz, the scores were close between Armstrong, Hancock and School. At the end of this final round, School House surged ahead and took out the competition by a clear margin of 15 points. Armstrong and Hancock tied for second place, each with 10 points. 

Following the House Competition, and new for this year, was a spelling bee that involved the two best spellers from each year level. Boys needed to draw from their courage bank to step out in front of the audience and spell difficult words, such as ‘achievement’, ‘adamant’ and ‘apportion’. In a hold-your-breath pressure session, the boys were slowly narrowed down to two Year 4 boys, Andy Hu and Angus Beaton. Running overtime into lunch, the tension was high as the boys proved their steely nerves to spell word after word correctly. Andy Hu finally emerged as the winner.

Most pleasing was the manner in which the boys conducted themselves during the event. While the competition is geared towards finding a winning house or individual, it was the encouragement the boys showed towards each other through both success and disappointment that proved most valuable.

Michael Stephens
Year 4 Teacher