Kensington Palace confirms major news about Prince George’s future
A major change for the second in line to the British throne has been confirmed by a royal spokesman, ending speculation about whether or not the prince would follow in his father’s footsteps
READING LEVEL: GREEN
A major decision has been made about Prince George’s future after months of speculation.
Kensington Palace confirmed on Tuesday that the 12-year-old will follow in his father’s footsteps and attend the prestigious* boys’ boarding school Eton College when the UK school term begins in September.
He is currently enrolled as a junior boarder at Lambrook School, but will finish up in the coming weeks.
“Kensington Palace can confirm that Prince George will attend Eton College in September,” a spokesman said.
Enrolment at Eton, which was founded just under 600 years ago, costs around £63,000 ($A120,000) per year.
Both Prince William and Prince Harry – as well as 20 British prime ministers and famous faces including actors Eddie Redmayne, Dominic West and Tom Hiddleston – attended the school in Berkshire, not far from Windsor Castle.
The location means the family will be close by: the Wales family recently moved to the £16 million ($A32 million) Grade-II heritage listed* eight-bedroom mansion Forest Lodge on the Windsor estate. They’d previously lived in the nearby Adelaide Cottage.
William began as a student at Eton in 1995, while Harry started in 1998.
The King’s eldest son spoke in June 2000 about his school experience, saying that he’d “really enjoyed being able to go about Eton as just another student.”
Harry remembers his time there a little differently. In his 2023 memoir*, Spare*, Harry wrote that settling in at Eton was a “profound* shock”. He eventually decided to focus on physical activities.
“Sport, I decided, would be my thing at Eton,” he explained in the book, adding that his big brother ignored him when he first arrived.
“Willy told me to pretend I didn’t know him. For the last two years, he explained, Eton had been his sanctuary*,” Harry recalled in the book.
“No kid brother tagging along, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle. He was forging* his own life, and he wasn’t willing to give that up.”
POLL
GLOSSARY
- prestigious: highly respected and admired, often important or of high quality
- Grade-II heritage listed: buildings of special architectural or historic interest with legal protection
- memoir: can be a biography or an autobiography, a written record of a person’s life or specific experience or that person’s own account of their life or experiences
- spare: the title of Harry’s memoir, Spare, riffs on a longstanding joke about the direct line to the British throne requiring “an heir and a spare”. As the firstborn son, Prince William is the heir apparent and Harry was relegated to the position as “spare”. He has since left his role as a senior royal but retained the Duke of Sussex title and remains fifth in line to the throne
- profound: felt or experienced very strongly or in an extreme way
- sanctuary: safe haven, a place where people can go to be safe and well and protected from outside harm or danger
- forging: in this context it means striding ahead, suddenly and quickly moving forward
EXTRA READING
What do the royal kids fight over?
QUICK QUIZ
- How old is Eton College?
- What is the estimated annual fee in AUD for a child to attend Eton?
- How many former British prime ministers have attended the school?
- What has Prince William said he “really enjoyed” about his own experience there?
- What did the Harry, the Duke of Sussex, decide to focus on during his time at Eton?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Send George to your school
Create a poster or a storyboard for a short video. The purpose of your poster or video is to convince Prince William and Princess Catherine to forget about sending Prince George to Eton and send him to your school instead!
Time: allow at least 40 minutes for this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Communication Design
2. Extension
Did you know that Prince George will probably have an armed security team with him at school 24/7? What plans do you think the school would have to make to manage the security that George needs, without disrupting the normal school day? Write a plan.
Time: allow at least 30 minutes for this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Critical and Creative Thinking
VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
Imagine you were there at Eton to greet Prince George and give him a tour of his new home away from home.
Create a conversation between two characters – you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don’t forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.
Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.