Earlier in the year, Alanna Nicholl participated in the initial rounds of the 2021 Spelling Bee and was awarded a place in the regional semi-final. She has now won a place in the 2021 Aotearoa New Zealand Spelling Bee Final sponsored by the Wright Family Foundation on Saturday 6 November in Wellington.

Earlier in the year, Alanna Nicholl participated in the initial rounds of the 2021 Spelling Bee and was awarded a place in the regional semi-final. She has now won a place in the 2021 Aotearoa New Zealand Spelling Bee Final sponsored by the Wright Family Foundation on Saturday 6 November in Wellington. This is a fantastic accomplishment, as she is one of only 19 Year Nine and Year Ten students across New Zealand to make it to the Final and the event promises to be memorable.

The event comprises three rounds of words from the 2021 Aotearoa New Zealand Spelling Bee Finalist Wordlist and multiple open rounds with words from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary 12th Ed. Spellers may ask for the word to be pronounced again,  The part of speech, the language of origin, the definition and a sentence using the word before attempting the spelling. The rounds will continue for all the participants who manage to spell their word correctly- as soon as a participant misspells a word, they are eliminated from the competition. This will prove to be a very tense but exciting process!

Alanna has already won a fully funded trip to Wellington for the event, including one night’s accommodation at the James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel on Friday 5 November and airfares to and from the event. If she is successful in the final, she stands to win $5000 cash and the 2021 Aotearoa New Zealand Spelling Bee Trophy.

We are very proud of Alanna’s incredible achievement- she is not just representing Westland High School, but also the entire West Coast, as she is the only student from this region to reach the final. We wish her well, and will be hoping she brings back the trophy!