Burnley Spelling Bee finalists announced after closely-fought semi

The spelling wizards after qualifying for the finals.

With the fiercely competetive semis having taken place at Reedley Primary School on Tuesday, March 12th, the spelling bee finalists from Reedley, Walverden, and Briercliffe Primary Schools will compete in the finals against other schools from the SWAT (Schools Working and Achieving Together) cluster at the ACE Centre in June.

With Mrs Gorrell, English Lead at Reedley, marking the spellings, she said that it was "incredibly difficult" to keep up with the children's responses, prompting Eesa, the Year 2 finalist from Walverden so say: "It was funny to watch Mrs Gorrell when we were were spelling our words. She was marking so fast that her hand went numb!"

"All of the children had worked really hard to learn their spellings and the speed at which they were saying them was astonishing," said one of the organisers. "It felt like some of the children had forgotten to breathe!"

The winners were as follows:

Year 1 - Alishba (Walverden)

Year 2 - Eesa (Reedley)

Year 3 - Yusuf (Walverden)

Year 4 - Ismail (Walverden)

Year 5 - Shareen (Walverden Primary School)

Year 6 - Sameeha (Reedley Primary School)