A West Philadelphia 7th grader, Saif Siddiquee, participated in the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee, being held this week in Washington, DC. 13-year-old Saif is a Penn Alexander School student. On Wednesday, Saif competed in the Preliminary Rounds 2 and 3 (onstage oral spelling) and spelled correctly both words (“crudités” and “recrudescence”) presented to him by the Bee’s official pronouncer, Dr. Jacques Bailly.

Only 45 kids out of the 285 who entered in this year’s competition made it to the Finals, and, unfortunately, Saif wasn’t one of them. Nevertheless, we congratulate Saif on his great performance and for representing his school and Philadelphia in this prestigious contest.