UK schools crowned in world’s biggest literacy competition

Word Mania 2022, LiteracyPlanet’s fun and interactive digital word-building game was the biggest yet for participation, activity, and scores. Students from 2,607 schools across 68 countries challenged themselves to improve their literacy outcomes and built an astounding 103 MILLION words!

Students from across the United Kingdom in years 1-9 raced against the clock to help their school climb the leader board; dragging and rearranging letter tiles in only 3 minutes to build as many words as they could from a set of 15 randomly generated letters.

Competing for a prize pool of £80,000, participants broke all Word Mania records in 2022; playing 4,790,865 games and dedicating 14,372,595 minutes to develop their word spelling skills. The highest score in a single game achieved 43,496 points and the longest word created was ‘Otorhinolaryngologists’.

“We have been blown away, dazzled and enthralled by the competition and skill of students all around the world,” said Tom Richardson, CEO, LiteracyPlanet.

“Word Mania is first of all about having fun, but it is also about supporting teachers in driving interest, passion and understanding of words and language from their students. We’re so proud of Word Mania as an initiative that combines interactive gaming, a competitive environment and teamwork to engage students in their classrooms to improve literacy.”

“Congratulations to all the schools that participated.”

One school in Scotland and seven schools spanning the length and breadth of England were crowned the winners of Word Mania 2022, with prizes allocated to the top three schools in each year.

WORD MANIA WINNERS:

• YEAR 1 Broadclyst Community Primary School, Exeter, Devon
• YEAR 2 & 6Uxendon Manor, Harrow, London
• YEAR 3 St Bernard’s Catholic Primary, Moseley, Birmingham
• YEAR 4 Bishopton Primary School, Renfrewshire, Scotland
• YEAR 5 Simonside Primary School, Jarrow, Tyne and Wear
• YEAR 7 Bickley Park School, Bromley, London
• YEAR 8 Cardinal Allen Catholic High School, Fleetwood, Lancashire
• YEAR 9 Granville Academy, Swadlincote, Derbyshire

Speaking about their win, Mrs Snelling, Lead Teacher of English, Cardinal Allen Catholic High School, has been amazed by the Word Mania craze sweeping their school.

“Our pupils have thoroughly enjoyed Word Mania as they found the 3-minute challenges fun and engaging and they loved the competitive element allowing them to compete with friends and other schools nationally. We will definitely continue to participate year on year. This was a great tool to build vocabulary. One pupil said, ‘this makes learning fun!'”

Word Mania is a literacy competition that helps develop important literacy skills including phonics, word families, rhyming and root words, affixes, spelling, vocabulary, word recognition and word knowledge. The Final Round of Word Mania was completed from 30th March – 1st April 2022.

Winners from across the globe are on display via: https://www.literacyplanet.com/blog/2022-word-mania-champs-crowned/