Sir Edmund Hillary School‘s head girl, Sumaiya Cotwal, beat off stiff competition from Kempton Park, Germiston and Joburg East schools to claim the winning title in the 2015 Spelling Bee Competition.
Now in its second year, the Spelling Bee competition is one of the events held under the auspices of Caxton to promote literacy. The event was hosted at Hirsch’s, in Meadowdale, on September 30.
Joburg East was well represented, with three out of the top five finalists representing local schools.
Sumaiya was joined by fellow Sir Edmund Hillary pupil, Lesego Sithole.
Phuti Mokogopha was runner-up, with Lesego taking third place, Keitumetse Makhubela taking fourth place and Lisa Ntozibantu taking fifth place.
Last year, the inaugural edition of this event hosted by the Joburg East Express, was well received. The event was also the winner of this year’s Caxton Excellence Awards Best Original Idea.
The event is aimed at giving future leaders an opportunity to develop their public speaking skills, improve their speech and promote the unerring usage of the English language, pronunciation and spelling.
Judges for the finals were Elaine MacDonald, Ntsiki Mkhize (second princess Miss SA 2015) and Joburg East editor, Marietta Lombard.
As winner of the 2015 Spelling Bee competition, Sumaiya won a R10 000 study fund injection sponsored by Malony, one Kindle Fire sponsored by Hirsch’s and R250 in shopping vouchers sponsored by Caxton.
Phuti won a Kindle Fire sponsored by Hirsch’s and a R150 shopping voucher from Caxton. Lesego won a Kindle Fire sponsored by Hirsch’s and a R100 shopping voucher from Caxton. Keitumetse and Lisa both won a Kindle Fire each.
