The Bee
Competitions
Thank you for your interest in these national competitions
Primary Bee - Stage 1
Spelling Bee - Stage 1
Translation Bee - Stage 1
Please register and then follow the links provided
Please contact us if you have any questions
Regional Finals
Dates & Locations
To Follow
Sponsored and Powered by:
About the competitions
Welcome to the Routes into Languages Bees,
sponsored by Sanako UK
Please Note
Using Sanako Connect for the Routes into Languages Bee competitions as a teacher
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Using Sanako Connect for the Routes into Languages Bee competitions as a student
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Primary Bee 2024/25 Competition Registration
The Primary Bee is for students in Years 5 & 6 who have started learning a foreign language ab initio in KS2 to practise and improve their vocabulary, pronunciation and memory skills in the target language (French, Spanish and German)
Words and phrases have been selected according to the work of LDP: Language Driven Pedagogy (formerly NCELP) in informing vocabulary learning, particularly during the early stages of language development. The list includes many high-frequency words (e.g., some numbers, some colours, some verbs, days of the week, question words and a number of common verbs to help early learners to acquire a robust knowledge of verb vocabulary.
The cost is £25 for state schools and £50 for non-state schools. Please use this link to pay for your school's entry fee before registering for this year's competition https://languageprojects.
Then register above to receive the Primary Bee Teacher's Pack, with the word lists and all the info needed to run the Primary Bee in your school. Please note that refunds will not be possible - it is the school's responsibility to ensure that having registered the school participates in the competition.
Register for Primary Bee here
Spelling Bee 2024/25 Competition Registration
Foreign Language Spelling Bee is a competition for students in Year 7 to practise and improve their vocabulary, spelling and memory skills in a foreign language (French, German or Spanish).
The Spelling Bee words have been reviewed each year since the competition began. In line with changes to the GCSE examinations (to be examined for the first time in 2026) we have updated the list to reflect vocabulary choices made by all three awarding organisations. All words on the Spelling Bee word lists also appear on all three GCSE word lists
Then register above to receive the Spelling Bee Teacher's Pack, with the word lists and all the info needed to run the Primary Bee in your school.
Please note that refunds will not be possible - it is the school's responsibility to ensure that having registered the school participates in the competition.
Register for Spelling Bee here
Foreign Language Translation Bee 2024/25 Registration
The Routes into Languages East Foreign Language Translation Bee is a competition for students in Years 8 & 9 to build on the work they did in Year 7 with the Routes into Languages National Spelling Bee practising and improving their vocabulary, spelling and memory skills in a foreign language (French, German or Spanish). It meets the demand from pupils and their teachers for a project providing a sense of progression by building on the requirements of the new KS3 curriculum, with its emphasis on translation and grammatical manipulation etc., helping students to practise and improve a range of skills vital to preparation for starting a GCSE course: vocabulary, pronunciation, memory, verb conjugation, tenses and sentence formation.
The Translation Bee has been reviewed in light of the new GCSE. We have retained the current vocabulary because it fulfils one or more of the following criteria:
i) appears on at least one of the three awarding organisation wordlists
ii) is a cognate
iii) is a country
Then register above to receive the Translation Bee Teacher's Pack, with the word lists and all the info needed to run the Primary Bee in your school.
Please note that refunds will not be possible - it is the school's responsibility to ensure that having registered the school participates in the competition.
Further, in response to teacher feedback and the high standard of student performance in recent competitions, the language content has been expanded for this year. Note that almost all additions appear on all three awarding organisation wordlists for the new GCSE and 86% of all the words in the competition appear on at least one of the three AO lists.