The royal family choosing state schools for their children?

[mids2019]

I was giving this some thought and basically why not?

I think security is a red herring because fundamentally security arrangements must be as easily arranged in a state school as a private school. Additionally privacy is a tenuous argument given that the children are being taught in classes regardless of schooling rype.

I think there is a real opportunity to modernise the royal family at least on this point as there is no specific constitutional arrangement that means the royal family have to be home educated or educated in the private sector; in fact this may be a tradition more honoured in the breach than by its observance. I think there would be an increase in popularity of the family of they are seen to be educated in a similar fashion to the cast majority of the population and therefore gaining a greater connection to the public. It is not as if schools like Eton have a divine right to educate royalty and in fact the royal family have went to a diverse range of elite private schools.

There are some anomalies with this education tradition as when a member of the total family ain't particularly academic then it becomes a challenger where the majority of their peers are (Prime Harry). Of course university in this country is non private but the system of educating the royal family possibly means there are only certain 'acceptable ' universities for the royals..

we don't want to leave the impression that it is only acceptable that the royal family mix with a certain social cohort at the formative schooling period and this doesn't have to be the.case. Did King Charles gain from a private education? From what I have read he was rather miserable at times so private schooling doesn't naturally lead to happiness as well as the fact l that educational qualifications do not influence the royals' future as much as for the common peiople.

Yes it is depressing, but it's also the truth.

I think it's not so much the bodyguard type security. I think it's more safety and privacy. Private schools are more used to having high profile children and the non-celebrity children who attend private schools are therefore less interested, it's less of a novelty. My kids go to school with lots of footballer's kids, the footballers don't get mobbed in the playground by the kids because it's not unusual. The parents understand the unwritten rules about not invading their space too.

@PuffinsRocks they both went to prep schools... Where did you read they went state?!

I don't think William and kate would tolerate bullying as Charles had to endure. I wonder if they will always day board? My experience of state schools is bullying, rather than your egalitarian vision of equality and nurturing.

He hated his school and desperately wanted to attend Eton, he then made the choice for his boys to attend Eton. I’m assuming at William was happy, he will send his boys there. Harry wasn’t so has made other choices for his children.

I don’t believe anyone with that type of wealth would choose state school.

The Belgian royal family sent their kids to state schools. Private schools don't really exist here - only the European ones normally for expats.

I think most parents would prefer their children went to private school. I really don't want my Grandchildren going to the local State schools.

There are wealthy people who are ideologically opposed to private schools you know, and for good reason.

I suspect this depends on their catchment area and what the school provision is like. I don't know anyone who is wealthy who would send their child to a failing, understaffed secondary state school with numerous issues around safety and poor exam results, for example. I know some though who are happy to send them to the local leafy comp with good exam results, good staffing levels and then top their education up with private tutors.

I know he wasn't royal but the Duke if Westminster sent hus children to state primary schools then local, day independent schools for secondary.

Whoops - some typos there. 🫤

Our Royal Family are generally quite thick and compared to intelligent children would stick out like a sore thumb in a school where they aren’t spoon fed.

It often boils down to your own background and experiences. Neither William or Kate attended state schools, so it's natural that they've chosen private for their own children.

Rightly or wrongly, there are advantages to paying for your children's education, including smaller class sizes and excellent facilities (mine go to state before anyone jumps on me).

People are entitled to send their children wherever they like. Just because they are in the public eye doesn't mean they need to virtue signal to the majority of the country to gain popularity. Every parent makes the best available choice for their child. What other people think of that choice is irrelevant, whether you're royal or not.

The current Duke of Westminster went to a state primary school, his father had hated being sent to boarding school as a child he didn’t want his children to experience the same.

I know someone incredibly wealthy who sent his children to state schools. He looked around the private schools in the area, but decided he preferred the local state, and state education had never done him any harm. They went to Bishop Heber in Malpas in the 1990s and have all done very well for themselves, and are very well adjusted wonderful people. I think a good home life, and state education is perfectly fine. Private education is not the be all and end all.

Reflecting on the coronation I was struck by how King Charles realises how diverse society is and the coronation was designed with this in mind. A lot of hereditary peers were not invited and instead the attendees were representative of Britain as a a whole to a greater extent than previous events. If this the direction of travel for the monarchy should schooling be part of this evolution? State schooling would provide opportunities to meet a more diverse section of society in terms of religion, wealth, world views etc. Is this not a good thing?

Could not a 'good'' state school have both security and privacy arrangements in place to allow royal children to flourish in a nurturing environment? There would be an expense involved but there is a lot of money devoted to the monarchy anyway. State school children are perfectly capable of respecting the privacy of others and the school leadership in conjunction with others should be able to enforce this.

Is the choice of schooling for the Royal children dictated by choice of simply tradition? If the latter are we allowing the RF to act as advertising for elite schools and is this necessarily a good thing in modern Britain? If we are bringing politics into this then if for example of Keir Starmer were to gain power and remove charitable status from private schools would King Charles in his weekly meeting with the PM express concerns about such a policy simply based on the schooling experience of his family?

*luckily his wife agreed. She did have a say!

Very true lol

Wouldn’t want the hassle of having them in our school tbh. Press intrusion etc

You do get ‘champagne socialists’! I went to an all girls grammar in the Home Counties and there were some very well off families who could easily have afforded good private schools. (Though no one was quite as rich as the royal family!) Some people prefer to live in a very expensive area and then send their kids to the good local schools. If kids didn’t pass entrance exams or wouldn’t do well at a grammar they were sent to less academic private schools.

And it would be utterly unfair to use a child to make a political point.

I think the child's schooling should be the choice of the parents and the decision should lie with what's in the best interests of the child.

@Novella4

Good point. Do therefore the RF as a whole attend non selective or limited selection private schools?

I think there was backlash after King Charles att ended Cambridge with average A levels when the public obviously wouldn't have that opportunity. I am fairly convinced Pince William would have attended Cambridge if the RF gauged that it would be acceptable with the public at large. Perhaps Oxbridge were determined at that point to throw off their elitist image so there are no longer free passes for the RF?

at Andrews was obviously an alternative university with a high public/private school proportion of students as well as being an ancient university so fitted in with an educational path for a future King. I think personally if PW had attended other schools may have widened his range of available universities.

Was he also world famous and the threat of kidnap plots? Let's be honest, the threat to the RF children at a state school would be high. Parents can send their kids where they want. Children shouldn't be used to make the general public feel better.

If a child misbehaves at a private school they can be thrown out without a second thought. How many of you have children attending state schools with aggressive yobs? It's almost impossible to kick them out because there's nowhere for them to go.

But is it true that European royals send their kids to state schools ? Does anyone have any evidence of that ? Or is it along the same lines as "they all ride bicycles and have normal jobs" ?

The Dutch royal family's kids go to state school. However the middle princess has gone to Atlantic College (together with the Spanish crown Princess I think), essentially to limit her internet and phone usage! She'd had an anonymous blog that got found out and then was posting photos of herself partying. So she's gone to a (actually great school) that's very hidden away!

The Dutch Crown Princess was at regular high school and cycled there across town. Had a security detail. The Dutch PM cycled regularly too, with his security detail. Both of them are now subject to very serious death threats from a drug lord so have been curtailed in almost all movements.