George going to Marlborough? Article linked.

[Greatballzoffire]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12872215/William-kate-snub-eton-george-marlborough-college-second-visit.html

Do you want my credit card and PIN numbers too lepapillon?

I've just actually read the article. It's an old one, just rehashed - it references Kate helping George swot: 'Kate is believed to be skipping a planned visit to Singapore this November to be in the UK when George is expected to take Eton's 150-minute verbal and mental reasoning entrance exam'.

These PR guys really need to up their game massively.

@goodbyestranger - but how would you know whether her may or may have not been allowed to sit the 2nd stage earlier? The normal process is ISEB then if you pass, you sit the 60 minute list test and an interview. Then it is common entrance in Year 8 for prep school students but state school students sit the exams earlier and do a different format. So there has always been some flexibility. They may well have adapted the process for Prince George given the planning that may be required for security/vetting etc. The Eton List test is some sort of Cambridge made adaptive reasoning test primarily.

The important point being that prep school students sit ISEB 2hrs 15 minutes in total of Maths, English, verbal and non verbal in their prep schools. Eton list test is sat at Eton as they are the only ones who administer it. Prince George can hardly go and sit it with a larger cohort of other boys on the same day as would be usual. Would be too disruptive for the other boys on an important exam day with lots of security etc. So one would reasonably assume that he would sit Stage 2 slightly differently than other boys.

The article produced like a rabbit out of a hat was originally published no later than last October. Nothing to see there.

I agree it looks like a total rehash - so all these papers making hard cash out of pure anecdote, yet again. With no reference to data or hard fact. And time and time again they get away with it and people happily gobble it up. Very strange indeed. If I can google the exact test requirements then who are these lazy journalists. I find it quite baffling really.

I assume the lazy journalists are the ones briefed so frequently and clumsily by KP and BP.

I doubt very much anyone was briefed by KP for that article. It is laughably incorrect. Just a quiet day in the DM office so rehash an old article and add random stuff.

It was a general comment.

It was the Daily Record.

Apologies I see it's been rehashed in the DM today too.

And by the looks of it it's actually from 2022.

The papers and/ or KP are all over the place :)

Maybe Sarah F wrote it - tis all very mills and boon am dram!

I think it's all invented bollocks tabloid speculation

But I'm sure there will be others who think the press are incapable of that, and only ever use what Palace PR dictate

It's a running joke that the press make up bollocks about the RF all the time. Sometimes that bollocks is leaked to them by insiders. Sometimes they drag out 'Royal commentators' to make up bollocks about 'body language' or 'to speculate about what they would have thought about. But it is also well established that they have relationships with many senior members of the RF and staff.

I’ve talked about the rehashing or republishing of royal (and other) stories before - I’m even beginning to suspect that the DM has some sort of algorithm which spits out a list of their ten most popular stories on royal every three months and some poor staffer has to rejig the headline and add a couple of new photos and republish it.

There one story about how Prince Philip told William he needed to propose to Kate or let her go and even now 12 years after the wedding this story keeps popping up every six months or so with a new date stamp and another dramatic headline.

“How William had to make a drastic decision over Kate”

Then the whole raft of cheap site scraper ‘news’ websites republish the story too, often in a way that looks like it’s been twice through a weird translation site.

“The Day Kate nearly didn’t become a Princess”

etc etc.

The Wales kids are mostly kept out of the main spotlight in terms of their day to day lives so the only topics the tabloids have to republish for clicks on a regular basis with them is school choices.

No one in the communications team for the royal family is secretly briefing the tabs on the kids future options.

There would be a very good reason for briefing that a relatively non selective school such as Marlborough was now in the mix after all the stories about Eton being the one, if the first test hit the dust. It would be an obvious face saver.

Or it could be that they prefer Marlborough! Whatever happens, the story will be spun to fit personal bias . If he goes to Eton, it will be either because they were pressured to take him or because he passed with flying colours, if he goes to Marlborough it will be because he failed to get into Eton or because parents preferred it.

I do admire your dedication @goodbyestranger to the belief that George failed his eton test.

If I were Kate and William I wouldn't have loved the fact there was photo of them and George when they looked around Eton.

But maybe there have been photos of them all looking around other schools as well.

I actually feel really sorry for them all to be honest. Boarding can be tough and I just can't imagine how tricksy it will be for the Wales children. I guess if I were their parents I would definitely think having them together in one school would be a wiser choice.

Thank you stillavid :)

Kate was packed off to boarding school as were her two siblings. It's very familiar to her; not a huge deal at all.

I recently read that Kate and George attended the Christmas Carol concert at Eton.

Lambrook held there's in the church, Chapel. Whatever. It isn't unusual. Lots of schools rent it/use it.

I know plenty of people who boarded and it was still a bid deal when their DC went away to school. Any normal parent is going to worry and especially K&W in this day of camera phones etc.

Tempted to say boo bloody hoo at this point.

Don't send them to boarding school then but if you do, don't give us heartbreak bullshit.

Lazy on the job front, lazy on the parenting front. They've got all the domestic help they need to make day school work.

They need to get over themselves.

Don't send them to boarding school then but if you do, don't give us heartbreak bullshit.

I suspect it’s a whole load of nonsense made up by the press.

Do you always believe what you read?