Heats were held in different parts of the country leading to the grand final, at the end of which Gayathri Kumar was crowned Britain's best young speller.
[1] Notable spellers apart from Gayathri included Nisha Abraham-Thomas from Wolverhampton, Mark Jackson from Cambridge, Dominic Harvey from Bath and Sarah Williams from Penzance.
In late 2005, the BBC broadcast a full series of Star Spell, again presented by Eamonn Holmes but Mishal Husain took over from Nina as word pronouncer.
As the show was such a success, Hard Spell returned to television screens at Christmas 2005 with a different age group (11-13) but the same presenters, Eamonn Holmes and Mishal Husain.
In the final, the winner was Niall O'Neill from Northern Ireland who won £10,000 worth of holiday vouchers and media equipment for his school.