PM Anthony Albanese encourages kids at annual Spelling Bee launch
Home and Away stars Ada Nicodemou and James Stewart have joined the Prime Minister in championing Kids News’ national spelling challenge that saw a record 82,712 student regos last year
READING LEVEL: GREEN
The charming storybook bridge at St Fiacre’s Catholic Primary School was the perfect backdrop for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he dared young Australians to dream.
Officially launching the 6th annual Kids News Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee at the Inner West Sydney school, Mr Albanese said that the record-breaking national spelling challenge was “helping young Australians find the right words and the confidence to use them”.
“The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is creating a buzz in schools across the country for all the right reasons,” Mr Albanese said.
As St Fiacre’s students shared some of their favourite fiction titles with the PM, the man himself built his own bridge from their current enthusiasm for fairytales and fantasy to equipping all Aussie kids for the challenges of the future, saying that spelling skills remained “one of the building blocks of a good education”.
“This competition is helping students get excited about literacy and that’s a good thing,” Mr Albanese said. “For thousands of students, the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is proof learning can be challenging, rewarding and fun.”
Home and Away star and self-confessed “goody-two-shoes” at school, Ada Nicodemou said for parents, “the big challenge is getting them off screens and in books and outside”. But she was optimistic*, as both son Johnas, 13, and on- and off-screen partner James Stewart’s daughter Scout, 14, have “a real thirst for knowledge”.
Nicodemou credited her Year 5 teacher Mr May with her “passion for reading”, while Stewart’s English teacher mum and Shakespearean* theatre troupe* mentor* Bryan Nason each paved his path with books.
“My mum … created the syllabus* for Vietnamese refugees* in the early ’70s,” Stewart said. “What I saw (was) how literacy creates opportunity.”
St Fiacre’s principal Leonie Palmer said the PM’s visit was a wonderful time for the school and the Prime Minister was “very approachable” with the students.
“Spelling is one of the most important ways we are able to accurately communicate with others,” she said.
“In this incredibly busy world, accurate spelling is a courtesy* we give to our readers. It reflects care, clarity* and respect for others, while allowing us to share the full meaning of our written message.”
Ms Palmer said and the children at St Fiacre’s were looking forward to participating in the Bee for the first time this year.
“The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is a wonderful way of encouraging students to see the value in correct spelling,” she said.
The 2026 PM’s Spelling Bee opens on Monday after a record 82,712 student registrations last year. News Corp Australia’s community ambassador Penny Fowler said the free literacy and computing classroom activity continued to find fresh relevance in a fast-changing world.
“The Spelling Bee remains a simple and fun way to build the basic literacy skills fundamental* to all learning and an important part of Kids News, our free online news site, ” Mrs Fowler said.
“As a company we are passionate about giving back to our communities and we also believe a good education for all is essential to building a stronger, more liveable and resilient* Australian society.
“We are really looking forward to a record number of entrants this year.”
Stewart added: “Those refugees that came here … got learning, got writing and the generations after are now becoming lawyers, teachers and doctors. The importance of spelling is that it gives a person a future.”
ABOUT THE BEE
- The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is a free, digital competition for students in Year 3-8.
- Supervised by teachers, students compete at their school in three levels: Green level for Year 3-4, Orange level for Year 5-6 and Red level for Year 7-8.
- They get 30 randomly selected words from their competition level and have 25 seconds to type each answer. The students with the most correct words in the fastest time progress to finals.
- Teachers can register their students from Monday, July 20, when the school round begins.
- The school round ends on August 21. State and territory finals will be held August 31 to September 4 and the national finals on September 9-10.
- The national champion in each age group wins a trip to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister, an iPad, HarperCollins book pack and a $1000 voucher for their school.
Teachers can visit spelling-bee.com.au and kidsnews.com.au for more information and to register.
Ada and James star in Home and Away, Monday-Thursday, 7pm, on Seven
WATCH THE VIDEO
POLL
GLOSSARY
- clarity: the quality of being clear and easy to understand, see, or hear
- courtesy: polite behaviour, or a polite action or remark
- optimistic: hoping or believing that good things will happen in the future
- syllabus: subjects or books to be studied in a particular course, especially a course that leads to an exam
- refugees: people who have escaped from their own country for political, religious, or economic reasons or because of a war
- Shakespearean: relating to, characteristic of or written by English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
- troupe: group, set of people who have the same interests or aims, and who organise themselves to work or act together
- mentor: an experienced and trusted person who gives another person advice and help, especially. related to work or school, over a period of time
- fundamental: forming the base, from which everything else develops
- resilient: forming the base, from which everything else develops
EXTRA READING
PM leaves Bee winners in stitches
Bee spelling success pretty sweet
PM’s Spelling Bee national finalists
QUICK QUIZ
- At which school did the Prime Minister launch the 2026 PM’s Spelling Bee?
- Who does Home and Away star Ada Nicodemou credit with her passion for reading?
- What did Home and Away star James Stewart’s mum do that enabled him to see the importance of spelling and literacy?
- How many students were registered in the 2025 PM’s Spelling Bee?
- St Fiacre’s has its own storybook bridge but what was the bridge Mr Albanese built between two spelling-related things?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Expanding on an idea
There are numerous quotes within this news story from those announcing and interviewed about the PM’S Spelling Bee. Choose one quote that feels the most true or important to you. Copy the quote and then write a paragraph to expand on the idea presented. Explain in detail what you think they are trying to express and how this connects with your own thinking.
Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English
2. Extension
Write a summary of the news story, intentionally including 10 spelling errors. Swap summaries with a partner and correct each other’s work.
Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English
VCOP ACTIVITY
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are important in connecting ideas in a text and improving its flow. They help to join sentences, clauses or phrases to create a coherent and meaningful text.
Coordinating conjunctions are used to connect equal ideas or phrases – for example: and, but, or, so, yet, nor.
Subordinating conjunctions are connecting words or phrases that join a subordinating clause to the main idea. They provide additional information about the main idea – for example: because, although, while, when, if, since, until.
Complete at least two activities from the choices below:
Read the news article carefully and highlight all the conjunctions used in the text.
Write down the conjunctions you found and the words or phrases they connect.
Identify the type of conjunction used (coordinating conjunctions or subordinating conjunctions).
Explain the role of conjunctions in connecting ideas and improving the flow of a text.
Write a short paragraph about something you found interesting in the article. Challenge yourself to re-use three conjunctions from the text. Can you up-level them to a higher level conjunction? Does it make the sentence better or harder to read? (Sometimes, the basic conjunction is the best choice).