Sarah CB Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 This is a school issue - ds is in grade 6. The classroom spelling bee was last week. The week before, they had been handed a list of words (50 grade 6 words and 50 grade 7 words) to study. Ds loves spelling, but gets stressed out about things. He studied hard and, throughout most of it, he was convinced he would never learn al the words. But, he did. The morning of the spelling bee I went through the whole list with him and he got every one right. At the class spelling bee, the teacher started with grade 4 words. Only kids who had siblings in grade 4 had looked at those words. The two kids who (I'm told) helped their younger siblings study for the grade 4 bee were the ones who won the class bee. The class bee didn't include any grade 6 or 7 words. Ds said one of the girls looked like she was going to cry and ended up going home early. I emailed the teacher. Told her that I thought it hadn't been done fairly. Either all the kids should have been given access to the other list or at least they should have been warned that the class bee wouldn't be based on the list they were given to study. I've asked that they do another class bee, using the list the kids were given, and send the winners of the first class bee as well as the winners of the second class bee to the school bee. I emailed the teacher on Saturday, but I haven't heard back from her yet. The school bee is on Friday. I was pretty involved with our homeschooling "school" bee back when dd was competing in bees. We didn't have class bees, we just had all interested homeschoolers in our program get together for the "school" bee. The kids were always given the lists to study and we never asked words that weren't on their lists - we might have gone off-list if we'd run out of words, but we certainly wouldn't *start* with words they weren't prepared for. Last year, the class bee was based on the words ds was given to study (different teacher) and for my other ds he said they had been asked words they studied as well. Am I totally out to lunch here? Any advice on how to handle this? I don't want to make the teacher mad, but I feel like this was terribly unfair. What do I do if she doesn't respond to my emails? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 It was obviously unfair and I think you were right to email and point out that they basically changed the rules on the kids midstream. But... you probably also just have to let it go. This is one of those school things. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldberry Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Maybe this is not the norm, based on what you are describing, but spelling bees I have been involved with were not limited to a certain list of words. It was more "5th grade level" or "8th grade level". If it's just a list, then whoever wins is whoever learned the list, not necessarily the best speller. So I guess it depends on what the point or parameters were. Was the list a "sample"? Or was the list, "here are the words that will be tested"? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aiden Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 When I participated in spelling bees, the words for a class bee usually came from our spelling books. I have no idea where the words for the school bee came from. We were not told anything in particular to study for class or school bees. For the regional bee, we were given a booklet with a long list of words and told that they were "representative" of what we'd have to spell. In reality, they were much harder than the words that typically showed up in the regional spelling bee--I think they were much more likely to show up in the national one. I agree that words should not be taken exclusively from a list that students were given to memorize--that's a memorization competition, not a spelling bee. However, if students were made to understand that they'd do well by studying the list they were given, and then it turned out that students didn't do well unless they'd studied a list that some students had access to and others didn't ... that's not the same thing as just using a random set of words that weren't on the list but that were of equivalent difficulty. I would be upset with the teacher but would not expect her to invalidate the results and do it again. The best I'd hope for was that she wouldn't do the same thing to another group of students next year. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah CB Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 This is part of the Scripps Bee. The materials they use for prep come directly from Scripps. The other classes that I know of also based their classroom bees off their grade level list. When a student wins the class bee, they're given the words for grades 1 - 8 and the school bee is based on those words. Then, when they go to Regionals, the Regional Bee being with the Spell-It words (I think about 750 words) and eventually moves off-list if needed. I know it seems like everyone would just memorize the whole list and then how would they find a winner, but most kids go out in the first couple of rounds. When dd was doing regionals we were amazed at how many people didn't know the Spell-It words. The bottom line for me is that the teacher should have told the kids what to study for the classroom bee. It made no sense for the kids to spend time studying the grade 6 list when she was going to give them the grade 4 list for their class bee. And, if her intention had been to provide a list that they hadn't studied then she shouldn't have chosen a list that a few of the kids in the class had access to. If this was just a matter of not making it to the school bee it would be no big deal, but the school bee leads to the regional bee and the regional bee leads to Washington, so clear guidelines are really a must here when, for some of the kids, a lot is at stake. Even the Scripps site says that Step 1 is learning the 100 words for your own grade level. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah CB Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Maybe this is not the norm, based on what you are describing, but spelling bees I have been involved with were not limited to a certain list of words. It was more "5th grade level" or "8th grade level". If it's just a list, then whoever wins is whoever learned the list, not necessarily the best speller. So I guess it depends on what the point or parameters were. Was the list a "sample"? Or was the list, "here are the words that will be tested"? All I can go on is what happened last year and how we've handled other bees. Last year (and this year for my other ds), the kids were given a list and told to prepare for the class spelling bee. The words in the classroom bee came from that list. Kids who won the classroom bee were given the list for grades 1 through 8. The School Spelling Bee was based on that list. No one made it to the grade 8 words. Kids who were going to regionals used the Spell-It list to study. Regionals started with the Spell-It words and, at some point, moved off-list. Most of the kids eliminated at the regionals that we attended were eliminated while they were still using words from the Spell-It list. My point is that the kids should have been told that the list they were given was not what the class bee would be based on. Also, that their class had an unfair disadvantage because there are other classes in the school who *did* base their classroom bees on the list the kids were given to study. Plus, a few of the kids in the grade 6 class had access to the list the classroom bee was based on, so they had an unfair advantage over the other kids in the class. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aiden Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Based on what you've said, I'd start wondering if the teacher violated the rules of the bee--if the words are *supposed* to come from that list, then she did something patently against the rules by drawing words from a different list. You could potentially make a case to the principal to force her to redo the class bee. However, that wouldn't leave much time for studying for the school bee, and whatever student was declared the winner in the class already would be put in a difficult situation as well. I doubt I'd take it that far. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie G Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 I never understood why school bees were like that- they give classroom words for the class bee and then the kid who wins that gets the entire list of words for the school bee. Why not give them all the words to begin with? It's on the Scripps site as a resource for parents- they should have provided the entire list if they were going to have a classroom bee using words from the lower grades. (I'm assuming they are using the Scripps list) It would have totally been cool if they had used the words from the list they handed out and then gone off list because they still had no winner. But to not even use the list words...makes you wonder why they even handed out the class list. I'd probably bring it to the attention of the teacher and maybe the principal to make sure it doesn't happen again. They could fix it this year by letting the kid who won the classroom bee go on to the school bee but also holding an additional classroom bee with the words they SHOULD have used. So yeah, his class would have two kids moving on to the school bee but it's a fair solution. So sorry that happened- it's really frustrating! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldberry Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 if her intention had been to provide a list that they hadn't studied then she shouldn't have chosen a list that a few of the kids in the class had access to. Last year (and this year for my other ds), the kids were given a list and told to prepare for the class spelling bee. The words in the classroom bee came from that list. My point is that the kids should have been told that the list they were given was not what the class bee would be based on. Also, that their class had an unfair disadvantage because there are other classes in the school who *did* base their classroom bees on the list the kids were given to study. Plus, a few of the kids in the grade 6 class had access to the list the classroom bee was based on, so they had an unfair advantage over the other kids in the class. I agree based on this it doesn't sound fair. Sounds like poor communication and organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 For the Scripps bee we always just studied our grade level words, but the assumption was competence on words that were easier. Our bees weren't limited to a small list at all, those were more 'samples' for difficulty in syllables, etymology, phoneme identification, etc. You may be out to lunch on this one, but I think an email but was perfectly appropriate :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsintheGarden Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 I'm very sorry this happened in your child's classroom bee. I have been involved in the Scripps bee for many years at all levels, and agree that what happened is unfair. What happened is not, however, against the official Scripps rules for local spelling bees, and according to Scripps the decision of the local bee officials is final. That said, what happened is not how Scripps intends for classroom bees to work. If the teacher wants her students to have a chance to win the school bee, she should provide them with the entire grade 1-8 list and Spell It, both spelling and vocabulary, at the beginning of the school year. II were you I would tell the story to the principal and see what she says, being mindful that what's done is done. An excellent way to study is by using Word Club, which tests on all the CB/SB + SI words + vocabulary. It costs $25/year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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