Students prepare for National Spelling Bee

The Coca Cola National Spelling Bee has started to buzz once again. This is the seventh year that the competition is taking place and two hundred and forty-two primary schools, divided into thirty-eight zones, are gearing up for action. Bowen and Bowen’s David Craig says that this time around there will be more prizes.

David Craig, Merchandising Manager, Bowen & Bowen Ltd.

“We launched it with a publication of a magazine called the Spelling Bee Buzz that we circulated to all the schools countrywide. In that magazine is information about the rule changes we have, some very exciting information about new prizes this year.”

“As usual every year we try to update the spelling bee. It is very important to us to try to make it competitive and fun and…”edutainment” is what we like to call it. One of the new prizes this year is a third place prize that we’ve given to the district at the district level. We never did that before and we did that because we want to make sure that if someone gets sick out of the first and second then we have someone to jump in. Also at the national contest, we are going to give a gate prize to make sure all the kids stay because the prize will be drawn at the end of the national contest. We will be giving, in order to improve the school spirit and competition, a school spirit prize. We’ll be giving a prize for the best banner in the audience. We’re going to encourage the kids to come up with banners made up of all types of material. We’re going to have a panel of judges decide what is best and we’re going to give a prize to the school.”

Craig says that the competition would not have been possible without invaluable assistance from the Ministry of Education.