Coventry duo buzzing as they head to prestigious Cambridge final

Two West Coventry Academy students have seen off competition from more than 1,000 others to clinch their places in the national final of the Foreign Language Spelling Bee.

Jayden and Haroon finished inside the last 16 of nearly 1,500-plus original competitors at the regional final of the prestigious Spelling Bee contest at the University of Warwick.

The duo, along with fellow WCA student Mujeebah, did their school proud against some tough rivals including numerous independent schools.

Now, the next challenge awaits both Jayden and Haroon in the national final at the University of Cambridge on June 27.

The Foreign Language Spelling Bee is a competition for students in Year 7 to practise and improve their vocabulary, spelling and memory skills in either French, German or Spanish. They have to translate the words from English and spell them in the target language.

The competition has four stages – class and school competitions before regional and national finals – and by the final stage students will have learnt 300 words.

Bal Bahra, Subject Leader for Languages at WCA, said: “Both Jayden and Haroon do Spanish, so huge credit to Santi Cortinas (Teacher of Spanish) for training them!

“They were the final three students selected from their year group and have been learning each stage of words on a weekly basis at lunchtime.

“They are required to correctly spell randomly selected words in the language they study in one minute. They do this at the front of the stage which is, of course, a great achievement in itself and takes some confidence.

Well done to all three students for being such fabulous ambassadors for the love of languages. Good luck to Jayden and Haroon in the national final!

West Coventry Academy is part of the thriving Arthur Terry Learning Partnership.

Pictured, left to right, are Jayden, Mujeebah and Haroon.