About The Times Spelling Bee Championship

Words are the lifeblood of learning and spelling skills lie at the heart of literacy. We know that children who strive to improve their literacy and spelling skills early on benefit through school and beyond, which is why The Times launched the UK Spelling Bee Championship.

The Championship is aimed at the 11 to 12 year-old age group and is open to full-time pupils in schools in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Since we launched in 2009, hundreds of schools have taken part and more than 12,000 children have represented their schools in Spelling Bee Championship teams.

Open to more schools than ever before.

In 2012, we are delighted that even more schools can take part in the Championship, as the local heats of The Times Spelling Bee Championship will be held online. The advantage of online local heats is that some schools that were previously unable to take part due to travel difficulties will be able to do so by playing on the internet.

Teachers can now register teams to take part in the local heats, which will take place in March. The winning teams then progress to the semi-finals in May. The climax will be the Grand Final, which takes place in London in June 2012. This will be a high-profile event featured in The Times newspaper and on TheTimes.co.uk.

There are prizes for the winning teams, for individual top spellers, and for the schools taking part.

The aim of The Times Spelling Bee Championship is to make spelling fun and to help teachers to raise the profile of spelling and develop their pupils’ abilities.