Wednesday 21 May 2025
Excited crowds of students gathered at the Flanagan Theatre on Monday and Wednesday last week to support their Houses’ representatives in the 2025 edition of the Inter-House Spelling Bee. Junior and senior competitors strove to spell increasingly difficult words to gain for their house the coveted award of Champion Speller. The Spelling Bee is one of the most popular events held in the College for Literacy Week.
In the Junior event, all the contestants made it through the first two rounds without difficulty, but then started to drop off on a regular basis. By the fifth round there were five contestants left, but Sebastian Walker (Year 10, Major), Jake Martin (Year 9, Parnell) and Seb Fong (Year 9, Marsden) all departed that round. This left the two remaining contestants to fight it out for the championship – Eason Lan (Year 10, Greenbank) and Darren Pan (Year 10, Averill). They proved evenly matched through several rounds, until finally in the ninth round both stumbled, with Darren missing “incandescent” while Eason couldn’t manage “anemone”. One more round was needed to separate them. Darren had no trouble with “trebuchet” while Eason missed the second 'i' in “tonsillitis”.
Darren thus emerged victorious in a closely fought contest, with Eason second and Seb third.
On Wednesday the theatre filled up with a raucous crowd for the Senior event. Each correct spelling was cheered enthusiastically by the contestant’s supporters, with presenter Robert Lamb having to insist on silence during the spelling attempts.
Contestants fell by the wayside from the beginning, with some betraying a lack of familiarity with fairly straightforward words. By the end of the fifth round there were four contestants remaining: Harrison Wong (Year 11, Marsden), Mae-Li Darroch (Year 11, Taylor), Enoch Cham (Year 11, Greenbank) and Henrik Leung (Year 13, Selwyn). The contestants proved experienced in the ways of spelling bees, with some being observed spelling out the words with their fingers, and others requesting the language of origin of their word, not something that it had occurred to the organisers to provide!
In the end it didn’t take long to separate the last four, with Harrison and Mae-Li going out in round six, unable to spell “inexorably” and “chauffeur” respectively. As in the Junior contest, the final two both missed out in the next round, with Enoch missing “mellifluous” and Henrik “proscenium”. So they came back for one more round, with Enoch successfully spelling “eligibility” while Henrik couldn’t manage “exhilaration”.
Enoch was crowned Senior Champion, with Henrik second and Mae-Li third.
Congratulations to the winners and place getters, who were rewarded with tuck shop vouchers. Thanks to presenter Robert Lamb and judges Nushi Wijewardena and Nikki Bentley.
On Thursday came the final competition of the week, the inaugural Inter-House Quiz. Once again the Flanagan Theatre filled up with a lively crowd eager to support their Houses’ representatives.
Contestants from each House took turns to answer questions over three rounds – New Zealand, Science and History – with a final quiz-off between the top two contestants. Unfortunately, owing to the advanced age of your humble question setter, there were a number of lapses with two contestants being asked the same question, so that the intrepid quizmaster Gareth Walters had to make some hasty substitutions. But it all just about worked out.
Contestants showed a lack of familiarity with facts about New Zealand, but did better with Science and History. After the three rounds the two leaders were Harrison Wong (Year 11, Marsden), returning from the spelling bee the day before, and Reuben Smith (Year 13, Averill).
In the final playoff, Harrison breezed through all five of his questions, while Reuben couldn’t identify the painter of “The Girl with the Pearl Earring”. Harrison was awarded the well-deserved title of Quiz Champion with Reuben second. Wyatt Empson (Year 12, St John’s) and Ryan Gabriel (Year 13, Major) were equal third. Tuck shop vouchers were handed out in profusion.
Many thanks to quizmaster Gareth Walters for steering the ship through stormy waters, to marker Ayden Amath (Year 12, Averill), and to all the other students who helped with the proceedings.
Andrew Lockett - Librarian