Pupils win national spelling competition

A TALENTED group of master spellers from a boys' school have proved they are the best in the country by winning a national competition.

Four pupils from St Martin's School, in Moor Park Road, Northwood, beat off more than 780 schools to win The Times Spelling Bee championship.

After winning their first heat back in April and sailing through the semi-finals in May the team went on to win the title at the Grand Final, held at the Odeon in Leicester Square last Tuesday.

The team was made up of 12-year-olds Jonah Surkes, Prahalad Prasasd, Dylan Amin and Gordon Hao and they were assisted by their English teachers Linda Crook and Linda Dannenberg.

Jonah said: "We would like to thank The Times for giving us such a brilliant opportunity, as well as our English teachers for giving up their time to support us.

"We are over the moon at winning the Spelling Bee. We never expected to get into the finals, let alone to win the whole competition."

Mrs Crook said: "The whole school supported our Spelling Bee team and all of our Year 7 watched the competition. We are very proud of the boys. They loved every moment of the Spelling Bee and we have enjoyed working with them.

"They enjoyed a very busy day yesterday (Wednesday) when they were interviewed by The Times, BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio Five Live, Asian Network and The One Show."

The team won trophies, dictionaries and the chance to edit the Young Times section of The Times.

They gained a massive 115 points to win the title spelling words like cannonade, fluorescent, accretion and contemporaneous correctly to win.

The runners-up were a school from Wiltshire who managed to get 98 points.