A student of Oxford International School at Dhanmondi, Dhaka, at The Daily Star Spelling Bee contest held at the school yesterday. Three students of the school advanced to the divisional round.Photo: STAR

Three top-class schools in the capital -- Oxford, Green Dale and London Grace -- yesterday hosted The Daily Star Spelling Bee competition organised by champs21.com.
The young spellers from Oxford International, competing for a place in the divisional round, showed tremendous grit and tenacity with only nine being knocked out in the first two rounds.
The battle of spelling mastery intensified from the third round as words like “catachresis” and “impecunious” rolled in, heightening the margin of errors, albeit by the slightest of margins, and eliminating in the process all but six spellers.
Only Partho Majumdar of class six survived the fourth round and crossed the first round hurdle to become the first speller from Oxford.
The remaining five spellers took part in a tiebreaker from which Mirza Ishraq of class nine emerged as the second speller from the school.
It took two more tiebreakers for the school's third and final speller, Fahim Tajwar of class nine, to make it through to the second round (divisional round) by correctly spelling “myriad”.
“Spelling is part of our daily lives, which is often overlooked. But now because of Spelling Bee, students will practise harder, just like me. And I'm glad to be a part of this,” he said.
The Head of Academics of Oxford, Farah Naz Haque, was all smiles seeing her school perform remarkably.
“It's a great initiative by The Daily Star and champs21 to have this Spelling Bee [competition] in our country and it's great to see the enthusiasm and hard work put in by the students,” she noted.
From Green Dale International, Nayeem Farid of class nine and Khurshida Khanam and Redwan Abul Kasem of class seven made it to the second round of the competition.
From London Grace International, Samia Tasfia Raja, Abdullah Al Masum and Shirajum Munira, all ninth graders, qualified for the divisional round.
Students, who still want to participate in the competition and advance to the divisional round, can do so by playing the Spelling Bee game on www.champs21.com.
At least 500 students will be picked from Dhaka for the divisional round.