Coast students vying for spelling bee state champion

Three Central Coast public school students have been named the state’s top spellers, beating almost 200,000 of their peers to make it to the NSW Premier’s Spelling Bee finals.  

Year 6 students Phoenix Stockwell from Gorokan Public School, Dasha Soto from Niagara Park Public School and Rori McBriar from Wyong Public School will take to the Q Theatre Penrith microphone on Friday, November 1 to compete for spelling bee senior state champion.  

The state final will be contested by 30 students in Years 3 and 4 and 30 students in Years 5 and 6.

More than 1,800 students competed in 60 regional finals over a 10-day period to reach the state finals.

Of these, 303 students (200 juniors and 103 seniors) speak a language other than English at home, and 95 students (46 juniors and 49 seniors) identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. 
 
Students spelled their way into the finals with words such as fascinate, anemometer, allegory, and sovereign. 

Arts Unit Premier’s Spelling Bee Support Officer Desiree Lane said the 2024 Spelling Bee’s enrolment increased by almost 10 per cent on last year with nearly two-thirds of NSW public primary schools competing.  

“This year we’ve had a noticeably lower number of withdrawals from the spelling bee, which suggests the new Zoom format we’ve implemented is making it easier for schools to participate, especially in rural and remote areas,” Lane said. 

“We had a starting pool of just under 200,000 participating students with the most remote student from Broken Hill. 

Yamba Public School in northern NSW has had students compete in the finals five times in the past eight years. 
 “Yamba has a history of strong spellers, and Year 5 finalist Willow Allen is no exception,” Lane said. 
 The spelling bee encourages students to improve their vocabulary and spelling and promotes literacy skills in combination with the English K-6 syllabus. 
 To compete at the regional finals a student must have won their school spelling bee.