The Buzzing Brightonians took on the Hainault Hornets. But in the end neither of them was a match for St Martin’s School in The Times Spelling Bee championship.

The boys’ prep school, from North London, beat nine other teams in the grand final of the inaugural year of our competition, in a tense event at the Odeon in Leicester Square.

They were presented with dictionaries, goodie bags, trophies and a surprise prize — the opportunity to edit the Young Times section of The Times.

Proud parents, classmates and teachers cheered and gasped as teams battled their way through knockout and quick-fire rounds, tackling increasingly tricky spellings. “Euphoria” was spelt correctly by a delighted contestant while another refused to be beaten by “indefatigable”.

However “posthumous” finished off one competitor, another cringed when defeated by “excruciate” and a third wished she had foreseen how to spell “soothsayer”.

The audience followed the agonies and ecstasies with groans and applause, and urged on the teams of 11 and 12-year-olds by waving banners. As the tension mounted, so did the excitement. It was the winning team’s ability to spell words including crenellated, subcutaneous and peccadillo that secured them victory.

Prahalad Parsad, one of the winners, said: “I’d like to thank The Times for introducing a really good concept. It’s made spelling compelling and much more fun than it used to be.”

Dylan Amin, another of the winning team, said: “It’s something special I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

The third member, Jonah Surkes, added: “I read Young Times every morning and I’ve always wanted to come into a newspaper office.”

For some of the nervous finalists in the teams, it was their first visit to London. They came from around the United Kingdom, and won their places by beating hundreds of other schools that had competed at regional heats and in semi-finals.

Some contestants had been up since 4am to reach the event, and were fizzing with excitement beforehand.

In the knockout round, the ten teams shared the stage, standing before podiums to face words of growing difficulty. Catarrh, vignette, secede and phaeton all proved too much for some contestants but others correctly spelt words including vertebrate, troglodyte and rhetorician.

Richard Taylor, from Oundle School, successfully tackled crescendo, earning a laugh by (possibly unintentionally) spelling each letter louder and louder.

Eventually just three children were left. They had to go to 13 rounds before Elliott Harman, from Brighton College Preparatory School, won by spelling symbiosis.

In the quick-fire round, teams had two minutes to spell as many words as possible correctly. They could select easy, medium or hard words, earning one, two or three points respectively, according to their choice.

The bar was raised higher and higher as teams gabbled their way through words at breakneck speed.

The judges, from Collins Dictionaries, were forced to ask contestants to repeat some words afterwards, because they rattled through them so fast.

The points from the two rounds were added together, resulting in a nail-bitingly close finish.

James Harding, the Editor of The Times, told the audience: “I never imagined the Spelling Bee would be as exciting and impressive as this. It was like a cross between a rock concert at the O2 and a meeting at All Souls College.

“It was a fantastic day.”

Reactions from children on discovering they were in the final Peter Wisher, pupil at Welland Park Community College, Leicestershire:

“It was absolutely amazing. I rather like the idea of going to London. Now it looks like my dream has come true.”

Samyak Jain, Bishop Wordsworth’s School, Salisbury:

“We’re really, really pleased we won and we’re looking forward to the final in London.”

Jonah Surkes, St Martin’s School, North London:

“It was most exhilarating and that is with an ‘ar’ and not an ‘er’.”

Jamie Curran, Hainault Forest High School, Ilford:

“I had to spell perspiration and that’s certainly what I was going through.”

Vicki Simpson, Bishop Rawstorne Language College, Lancs:

“It’s surreal. It’s not really sunk in yet. It won’t really feel real until we get to London.”

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