India’s largest Spelling Competition is back with its 10th Season

­   Students from the 5th to 9th standard across the country can apply online at www.classmatespellbee.in  

­   The National Champion will win a grand prize of Rs. 2, 00,000 apart from the opportunity to witness the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee 2018 with a parent in Washington D.C., U.S.A.

by Shrutee K/DNS

India's No.1 Notebook Brand, Classmate from ITC, in collaboration with Radio Mirchi is organizing Season 10 of India’s largest spelling competition for school students, Classmate Spell Bee. This unique competition provides an appropriate platform for the country’s best spellers to identify their strengths and achieve recognition for their unique spelling skills. The spelling extravaganza, promises to deliver a richer and an even better experience than what it did last season. Classmate Spellbee will travel to more than 1000 schools across 30 cities and will reach out to more than 3,00,000 students from standards 5 to 9. Students from all across India can also participate online at www.classmatespellbee.in. The top 16 participants of the competition also get to showcase their skills on national television on The Discovery Channel, Discovery Kids and Discovery Tamil. Classmate believes that every child is unique. Inspired by this belief, the theme for the competition ‘Every child is unique and so is every word’ is which is around the brand’s philosophy of celebrating uniqueness.

Commenting on the event, Mr. Shailendra Tyagi, Chief Executive, ITC’s Education and Stationery Products Business said, "Classmate has always endeavored to recognize, nurture & celebrate the uniqueness of every child. Classmate Spell Bee Season 10 takes Classmate’s brand thought of celebrating uniqueness further as it provides students from different parts of the country yet another opportunity to identify and showcase their distinctive talents and skills on a nationwide platform. Classmate Spell Bee season 10 builds on the scale we achieved last year with the aim of reaching out to an even larger number of students across schools and cities in India, through a school contact program coupled with a novel mobile app and a dedicated website to engage students. The focus this year is to create a holistic educative experience for participants using a versatile mobile app and web based learning and practice solutions. The brand promise of Classmate is to support a child’s dreams with an equally unique & world class set of stationery products like notebooks, writing, drawing, art stationery and math instruments."

Mr. Mahesh Shetty, C.O.O., Entertainment Network (India) Limited said, “Every year Spell Bee is connecting more integrally with students, parents and teachers. Having started off as a spelling competition, it is today a landmark event that propagates the education of the English language at the highest level. It brings together some of the brightest children from across the country on one of the most credible edutainment based platforms. This year the competition will garner participation from across 30 cities through our on-ground efforts to add to robust participation online. Like every year, the competition will be televised to encourage students to showcase their skills on a national platform and prepare for the upcoming season. What makes the competition special is the pride that participants take in participating in it and in making it what it has become today.”

Classmate encourages children to believe in themselves, so that they do better than themselves. The brand places faith in the dictum that the ultimate goal of education is self-improvement. This thought is brought alive on-ground through the Classmate Spell Bee Contest. It serves two educational purposes. One, as a platform that inspires students to showcase their improved skills. And two, as an instrument that hones their command over their language.

Gratification details of Classmate Spell Bee Season 10:The National Champion of Classmate Spell Bee Season 10 will win a grand prize of Rs. 2,00,000/- apart from the opportunity to witness the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2017 with a parent in Washington D.C., U.S.A. in an all-expenses paid trip. The 4 semi-finalists will win a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 each. The grand prize for the winner of Classmate Spell Bee Season 10 and those for the semi-finalists have been specifically designed by Classmate to help encourage and enable students to follow their heart’s true calling.

The initial phase of the competition will comprise of an on-ground exercise where children will be given spelling tests in schools. Top scorers from the school level will battle it out in the gruelling city finale round and the best performing students will make it to the semi-finals from there. The top 10 students from each city will then appear for an online test which will choose the best 16 spellers from across India. These students will then battle it out in the grand finale to win the title of Classmate Spell Bee Champion.

About Classmate, Education & Stationery Products Business, ITC Limited: ITC made its entry to the education and stationery business with its Paperkraft brand in the office stationery segment in 2002; and later expanded into the popular student notebook segment with its Classmate brand in 2003. By 2007, Classmate became the largest Student Notebook brand in the country. Together, Classmate and Paperkraft offer a range of products in the Education & Stationery space to the quality seeking discerning consumer, providing unrivalled value in terms of product construction & price. Classmate and Paperkraft have become a natural extension of consumers. Meticulous understanding of consumer needs helped create a relevant and comprehensive portfolio of stationery products created to the highest exacting standards of performance and safety satisfying the needs of different consumer sets.Classmate’s portfolio today comprises of offerings spanning across notebooks, Pens (Ball, Gel, Roller and Fountain Pens), pencils (Mechanical and Wood Cased), Mathematical Drawing Instruments, Erasers, Sharpeners and Art Stationery (Wax Crayons, Plastic Crayons, Sketch Pens and Oil Pastels) ITC is the manufacturer of India's first Ozone treated environment friendly Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) pulp, paper and paperboard. The same eco-friendly paper is used to manufacture Classmate and Paperkraft Notebooks

About Radio Mirchi:Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL), India’s leading private FM radio broadcaster, popularly known as Radio Mirchi, operates across 36 cities in the country. Launched in 2001, Radio Mirchi has the highest listenership across the country and a track record of developing innovative content, thus expanding and retaining its audiences and advertisers through the years. Radio Mirchi has delighted listeners and the industry with its exciting properties like the Mirchi Music Awards, Mirchi Top 20, Mirchi Neon Run and much more.  Radio Mirchi’s continuous innovations across different platforms like Visual Radio or Mirchi Mobile have been instrumental in gaining leadership in the private FM Radio industry.