North Battleford to host first ever First Nations Provincial Spelling Bee
- Fraser Needham | March 02, 2016
Indigenous students from all over Saskatchewan are gearing up for the first ever First Nations Provincial Spelling Bee.
The spelling bee will be held April 8 at the Don Ross Centre in North Battleford and is being hosted by Chief Poundmaker School.
The competition is split into three categories – Primary for ages six to eight, Junior for nine to 11 and Intermediate for 12 to 14.
The first place finishers in each category will advance to the Spelling Bee of Canada to be held in Toronto on May 15.
About 148 students from 21 First Nations schools across the province are expected to attend.
These include students from tribal councils and independent First Nations such as the Battlefords Tribal Council, Battleford Agency Tribal Chiefs, Meadow Lake Tribal Council, Prince Albert Grand Council, Agency Chiefs Tribal Council, Saskatoon Tribal Council, Yorkton Tribal Council, Treaty Four, Onion Lake Cree Nation and Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation.
Pauline Favel is a special education teacher at Poundmaker School and one of the organizers of the First Nations Provincial Spelling Bee.
She says preparing for and competing in spelling bees helps students in a number of ways.
“You learn new words, you are building self confidence, self esteem, your reading fluency is going to go up,” Favel says. “When you have a larger reading vocabulary, your fluency increases, your comprehension increases, your ability to write increases, your ability to spell increases.”
Favel says Poundmaker School has organized spelling bees at the tribal council level for a number of years but they wanted to take things to another level in 2016.
Since the demise of Canspell, a provincial spelling bee in Saskatchewan has not been held since 2012.
Favel says when the request for applications was sent out this past fall, the response was tremendous with many Indigenous and non-Indigenous students from provincial schools also wanting to take part.
However, for reasons of simplicity and manageability, the competition this year has been limited to students attending First Nations schools.
“We had requests from people outside of First Nations schools, knowing First Nations people who have their kids in provincial schools, but we couldn’t anticipate the response so we thought we can’t open that door because we don’t know what the limit would be,” she says. “And, we didn’t want people saying how come you are inviting Connaught School and your not inviting McKitrick School?”
In order to prepare, students in each of the categories are provided with a book of 400 words, which could be in the spelling bee.
The provincial competition must also follow national criteria, which means offering about $1,800 in cash prizes.
Favel says these costs combined with having to put aside money for the first place finishers and their families to travel to and stay in Toronto for the national spelling bee has meant they have had to do a significant amount of fundraising.
“When we had our tribal council bees, we just gave out certificates and we told them you can bring your lunch or we will have a canteen,” she says. “But with Spelling Bee of Canada, any regional bee, which is what we are, the only regional bee for Saskatchewan, you have to have cash prizes and trophies.”
Favel says fundraising has been going well thus far with a number of private and public organizations coming on board including the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority.
She says the organizing committee will assess how well this year’s provincial spelling bee went before moving forward.
However, Favel says she sees a lot of room for expansion down the road with the potential for Saskatchewan to possibly host a national First Nations spelling bee in the future.
Aside from Pauline Favel, members of the Chief Poundmaker Spelling Bee Committee include Deena Paules, Nicole Jordan, Marlene Chickeness, Priscilla Moyah and Chaz Albert.