Spelling Bee school round to start with ‘proud’ PM aiming high

Playing quiz master was all in a day’s work for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who delighted students in his Inner West Sydney electorate* this week to launch the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee.

Keeping a well-thumbed hardcover dictionary close during Wednesday’s schoolyard showdown* at Marrickville Public School, Mr Albanese reflected on the enduring* importance of spelling skills in the coming AI age.

“In our ever-evolving* digital world, words are key to opening up opportunity,” he said. “Improving your confidence with words and vocabulary means being able to better express yourself – inside and outside of the classroom.”

The Prime Minister was joined at Marrickville Public by some of the school’s top spelling talent, who were primed for the Bee’s national school round, starting Monday, and all the fun of the free digital battle of the ABCs.

“Seeing young Australians so eager to learn makes me proud,” Mr Albanese said. “It’s exciting to see spelling and learning presented in such a positive and supportive way – like it is in the Spelling Bee.”

And it’s not just young whiz kids hoping to post a personal best in the third annual online competition.

“I hope this year’s Bee can beat last year’s record 61,000 participants,” Mr Albanese said.

“There’s nothing quite like a friendly competition to help you set goals for yourself and make learning even more enjoyable.”

Mr Albanese had earlier shared a laugh with 2GB’s Ben Fordham about his own spelling skills. The radio host gleefully* reminded the PM that he was “flogged last year by a 12-year-old” while hosting* the 2022 winners at Parliament House, when Joanne Lee (who claimed the Years 3-4 category), Ozi Egesi (Years 5-6) and Zachary Cheng (Years 7-8) threw some curve-balls* his way.

“It was a wonderful trip to Canberra, meeting the Prime Minister at Parliament House,” Zac said. “The highlight was meeting the Prime Minister, Mr Albanese in person (and) testing his spelling skill. I still remember asking him to spell ‘magnanimous’* and Mr Albanese spelled it incorrectly.”

Joanne said she was “really nervous about meeting the Prime Minister, because he’s a very important political figure in Australia”.

“But once we actually got around to seeing him and talking to him, I was pleasantly surprised,” Joanne said. “He was very friendly and very easy to talk to – and it was especially funny when we had to ask him to spell a word for us.”

For his part, Ozi took the prize for stumping* the PM on the day.

“This is a German word. It means state of consciousness*. Bewusstseinslag,” Ozi said.

Mr Albanese laughed and said, “I’m not even going to try!”

The PM was gracious* in defeat, afterwards treating the reigning* champions to an unscheduled personal tour of his private office.

Blockbuster children’s author David Walliams, whose hotly anticipated The World’s Worst Monsters goes on sale in Australia next week, also put his support behind this year’s Bee.

“The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is a fantastic way to encourage children to play with words,” Walliams said. “One of my favourite parts of writing is thinking of funny ways to put different words together.

“If we can help children to see the joy in words, they will be more encouraged to play around with them for themselves. Reading, writing and even spelling should be fun!”

Registrations and the school round open on Monday 24 July at spelling-bee.com.au

ABOUT THE BEE

● The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is a free, online competition for students in Years 3-8.

● Students compete at their school in three levels: Green level for Years 3-4, Orange level for Years 5-6 and Red level for Years 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 24 July, when the school round begins.

● The school round ends on Friday 18 August. State and territory finals will be held August 28 to September 1 and the national finals on September 6-7.

● 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.

Details: spelling-bee.com.au

POLL

GLOSSARY

• electorate: the specific community and area that a politician represents in parliament
• showdown: a meeting to defend something important
• enduring: lasting, continuing for a long time
• ever-evolving: always changing, constantly developing
• gleefully: happily, merrily, mischievously
• hosting: receiving and entertaining guests
• curve-balls: surprising, unexpected or difficult question or event
• magnanimous: generous and forgiving, especially to an enemy or competitor
• stumping: leaving someone unable to answer a question or solve a problem because they find it too difficult
• consciousness: state of being awake, thinking and knowing what is happening around you
• gracious: behaving in a pleasant, polite and calm way
• reigning: being the most recent winner of a competition

EXTRA READING

Champs share top tips for blitzing the Bee

Champs’ quiz spells trouble for PM

No mistaking author’s support for Spelling Bee

Meet this year’s Spelling Bee champions

QUICK QUIZ

1. Which school did the Prime Minister visit this week to launch the Bee?
2. What was the record number of students who registered in the Bee last year?
3. What word did reigning Years 7-8 champion Zac Cheng ask Mr Albanese to spell at Parliament House last year?
4. Reigning Years 5-6 champion Ozi Egesi stumped the PM with a word in which language?
5. Which best-selling author also put his support behind the Bee and what is the title of his new book?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Which words?
Write a list of the 10 most important words that you think the Prime Minister really should know how to spell. These should be words that you think are important for his job. Next to each word, write a sentence explaining why you chose it.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

2. Extension
The Day the Whole World Forget How to Spell – write a story using this title.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

VCOP ACTIVITY
Read with Kung Fu punctuation
Pair up with the article between you and stand up to make it easy to demonstrate your Kung Fu punctuation.

Practise reading one sentence at a time. Now read it again, while acting out the punctuation as you read.

Read and act three sentences before swapping with your partner.

Take two turns each.

Now ask your partner to read a sentence out loud while you try and act out the punctuation. Can you keep up? Swap over?

Try acting out two sentences – are you laughing yet?