Joshua Kelly is Spelling Champ

GRADE three St Andrew Prep School student Joshua Kelly was a sight to behold on Friday, carrying a trophy almost as big as himself and just about as heavy.

He earned it for winning the school’s in-house spelling bee competition, beating his brother Samuel, who placed second, and Justin McKay, who placed third. The three will move on to represent the school in a final among 30 other prep and primary schools in the Ministry of Education’s regional cluster next month.

As Principal Janet Walsh-Davis told the Jamaica Observer, the competition began in 2004, the brainchild of the present chairman of St Andrew High School Marjorie Hyatt, and then principal of the prep school Dr Renee Rattray, but has since evolved to include schools in the cluster.

“The spelling bee competition at St Andrew Prep was really just an in-house competition. So they would have just the large trophy and some replicas for the kids. We never went outside of the school before I came here,” Walsh-Davis said.

“In 2013 I looked at the competition and I said you know this is something we could approach wide, and I approached NCB Omni Insurance and they came on board that first year with a $150,000 sponsorship. They also gave them (the students) Omni certificates,” she said.

This year’s competition was sponsored by NCB Omni Insurance, NCB Foundation and Insight Financial Services, which gifted the schools in the cluster with spelling bee books to prepare for the competition.

On Friday, Insight’s co-founder Julian Patrick praised St Andrew for staging the competition, which he said teaches leadership, confidence, composure, discipline and self-development, traits lacking in today’s society.

“I could not see this final happening without two persons who I believe are integral to the competition continuing,” said Walsh-Davis. “Our past principal Dr Renee Rattray, and the founder of the competition for whom the huge trophy that you’re looking at is named, the present chairman of St Andrew High School Mrs Majorie Hyatt.”

The spelling bee contestants are students from grades three to six.

Source: Jamaica Observer