Queenswood’s keenest wordsmiths battled it out in the Clarissa Farr Theatre on Wednesday 24 May as the four houses competed for the title of Inter-House Spelling Bee Champions 2023.

Pupils faced a series of Boggle and anagram challenges, along with classic spelling bee word lists featuring terminology from English, Maths and Science. There were also a number of specialist rounds, such as Japanese loan words and vocabulary related to the King’s coronation.

The Senior competition, featuring pupils from Year 9 to 12, was won convincingly by Clapham South, who dominated the individual spelling rounds.

The Junior competition was extraordinarily close. After four games of Boggle and several spelling bee rounds, Clapham North and Clapham South were tied. In the end the competition came down to a speed anagram-solving question to decide the winner. Clapham South were victorious by a single point!

Mrs Truran (Head Librarian) and Mrs Folan (Teacher of English) were our hosts in dictionary corner and carried the final decision on any ties.

Wordsmith of the House awards were given to those students, as nominated by their peers, who performed the best in the two halves of the competition.

Congratulations to everyone involved!