Students abuzz about spelling bee

TWO Damascus College students have represented their school in the state final of the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee.

Respective year 7 and 8 students, Isabeau and Braxton, recently took part in the second round of the national online competition which set them the task of spelling challenging, randomly selected words.

Both 13 years old, the pair said English is their strength, and they not only got to practice their skills as competitors, but had a lot of fun doing it.

“There were 30 words each round, so obviously we learnt a lot of new words,” Isabeau said.

“One of the words I had to spell was nomenclature, which means naming things in a zoological way.”

Braxton said he still remembered being asked to spell specific words, like anemone, and wondered whether he got the spelling right.

After completing the first round, Isabeau and Braxton said they had to take a big step up in the state final because the words were much more difficult.

“I scored much less in the state round, as the words were a lot harder,” Isabeau said.

Although they won’t progress to the national final, Braxton said it was “thrilling” to have been involved.

“When I found out I was a state finalist, I thought, this is big,” he said. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.”

Isabeau said she was excited to have been one of thousands of young people across all parts of Australia who had a go.

“It’s cool to have been the students that got through to represent Damascus,” she said.