English is the second language for year 3 student Nethuli Pathirana but it hasn’t held her back from being one of two Orange Public School students to make the state final of the Premier’s Spelling Bee.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Nethuli and year 6 student Jessica O'Connor are among 100 regional finalists who will take part in the state final to be held on Friday, November 2 at the Eugene Goossens Hall in the ABC Centre at Ultimo.
Nethuli, whose family is from Sri Lanka, said she started learning English when she was in kindergarten and was surprised to win a place in the junior division of the regional final.
VIDEO: Jessica O’Connor and Nethuli Pathirana show their spelling prowess ...
Jessica said she was “pretty excited” to make the state final in the senior division and her secret to remembering the words was to “practise heaps”.
“I read them over and over again at home,” she said.
Orange Public School Premier’s Spelling Bee organiser Kellie Wakeman said the girls competed in a class competition, then the top two from each class competed against each other, then four students Shafwan Jahin and Jessica O'Connor from stage 3, and Hala Tag and Nethuli Pathirana from stage 2 took part in the regional final at Millthorpe.
“We’ve had students go to the regional finals but we’ve never had one go to the state finals and now we’ve got two,” she said.
“It’s a good reflection on the school.”
To have qualified for the state final, the students had to correctly spell words such as embargo, cavalcade, notary, and scrupulous in the junior division, and besotted, expostulate, hereditary and subservient in the senior division.
Now it its 15th year, the 2018 Spelling Bee has seen a record participation of 170,000 students from almost 1000 public schools in NSW.
DO YOU WANT MORE ORANGE NEWS?
- Receive our free newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning, as well as breaking news alerts. Sign up below …