Why is Prince George not going to secondary school until after he turns 13?

[MinnieMounjaro]

Prince William reveals Prince George, 12, is already boarding at £10,669-a-term Lambrook School mol.im/a/15846933 via https://dailym.ai/android

I saw this article in the DM saying Prince George is currently boarding at Lambrook "ahead of moving to his secondary school in September". He turns 13 in July so the thought occurred to me - why is he still in primary school? Should he not have started secondary in 2024 when he was 11?

Saying no live in staff implies that they have staff for a couple of hours a day at most. The reality is the staff live in close quarters and while they don’t sleep under the same roof as the family, they are full time staff.

It’s disingenuous to imply otherwise which is what they do.

Not entering the debate about private education other than to say there are kids who do not come from wealthy backgrounds there as well (funded by grandparents and many sacrifices) as well as the kids on bursaries.

The reality is the staff live in close quarters and while they don’t sleep under the same roof as the family, they are full time staff.

What is their role?
Domestic?
Secretarial/admin?
Security?

My guess, a mix off all.

While I can picture the Wales sorting food & coffee.
I really can't picture any of them running around with the hoover or cleaning the many loos!

Drivers
Domestic staff - unnamed
Main Housekeeper
Gardener
Main Nanny
Groundspeople
Security
Presumably all live within grounds.
Other staff among the many (reportedly up to 90 staff employed)
Estate managers
Senior Advisors and Secretaries
Kate’s stylist - not named but highly unlikely to still be managing her own wardrobe since Natasha Archer left).
William’s valets
Kate’s hairdresser

There's many well to do families with this kind of staff. What's the big deal? No one thinks they are doing all of this .

I do think the “no live in staff” is a little disingenuous. The only reason you would say that at all is to give the impression that you “do for yourself” when they clearly don’t. As most very rich people don’t. And that’s absolutely fine. It’s just a little bit of unnecessary set dressing that they don’t need to do.

or cleaning the many loos!

It's a four bedroom house. How many loos do you think they've got?

Drivers
Domestic staff - unnamed
Main Housekeeper
Gardener
Main Nanny
Groundspeople
Security
Presumably all live within grounds.
Other staff among the many (reportedly up to 90 staff employed)
Estate managers
Senior Advisors and Secretaries
Kate’s stylist - not named but highly unlikely to still be managing her own wardrobe since Natasha Archer left).
William’s valets
Kate’s hairdresser

Most of those are in connection with their roles as working royals, so equivalent to business employees, or employed on the Windsor estate as a whole.

Surely they have no live in staff as they want family privacy as far as possible. They seem to be very hands on parents as much as is possible for them, and when they are away I would hazard a guess the Middleton grandparents step in, with nanny in support.
Privacy is everything. People here probably don't remember that Princess Anne had private letters stolen from her handbag (I think the cleaner/maid was the culprit but iirc it wasn't really specified). Catherine has had her private medical records accessed (or attempted access) by hospital staff. William had the experience of Paul Burrell stealing a load of private stuff from his mother.
It must be horrible wondering who you can trust. And these days people have phones. They can film, photograph and listen.
I wouldn't have live in either if I was in their situation. It just sets boundaries, gives clear family down time, and helps achieve a degree of privacy.

So I think it's pretty spiteful to imply they pretend to some ulterior motive of burnishing an image of down with the normal people by stating they have no live in staff when the real reason is very different.

At least 6, 1 for each bedroom, 1 downstairs, and a staff loo somewhere

Although I thought the new house was bigger than 4 bedrooms.

I'd agree that its privacy reasons they don't want live in staff. But there must be times when nanny's sleep over when W&K are on tour or at late night events.

£10K A TERM!!! It’s a different world.

It’s more than that but also it’s not that out there compared to the other private schools.

I’m in the US - good private schools are around $76,000 a year.

The best universities are $50-80,000 a year for four years.

£10k a term is the price of an average private secondary school in the UK. Eton will be much more than this..

Eton College School Fee
From 2025 onwards, the total school fee would be £21,099.60 per term, including VAT.
Since there are three terms per year, total annual fees will be roughly:
£21,099.60 × 3 = £63,298.80 per year (including VAT). 3

There’s nothing spiteful about saying that a very high profile family will be very mindful of their PR. Of course they are.

If you read Spare, you will learn about the desperate attempts of Harry's hapless history teacher to teach Harry history. The problem wasn't Eton - it was Harry.

Actually, the NYC public schools just rolled it out this year. It was very controversial and viewed as innovative. It does seem to work as the kids are more engaged.

The NYC schools also innovatively rolled out a return to phonics a few years ago after they admitted that 20 years of their previous system. produced illiterates.

Forest Lodge has 8 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.

I know I'm going to get yelled at but the former Royal here in the US has 16 bathrooms and 9 bedrooms. I've always been confused about why there are more bathrooms then bedrooms but I'm middle class and live on the east coast.

Anyone who got into Eton and stayed there would have to work very hard indeed to NOT get excellent exam results.

You really need to read Spare. I am convinced that years of putting up with Harry precipitated existential crises among the Eton staff. The history teacher, the art teacher. Thst poor matron.

Someone did a breakdown of it properly, but I think the 'bathrooms' in some cases are just loos/facilities including by the pool and in staff areas.

And then to that dynamic you mix in finances, having to rely on handouts from said family meaning you have to behave how they want you to otherwise they will cut you off or in spite give you less money.

Of course this gets ignored, brushed away by many people.

Do we think Forest Lodge has that his & hers bedroom set-up like on the Crown?

It makes sense to me that any big modern house each bedroom would have an en-suite and another couple of loos down stairs.
I'm surprised Forest Lodge only has 6 bathrooms, or is that not counting downstairs toilets?

But they don’t have to rely on handouts, they can get a job and earn their own money, like Harry and Meghan do?

And just a point from the post you quoted - I imagine that the last thing Charles would want is Harry handling things and caring for him, so I don’t think Harry needs to worry about that. IIRC he offered to come back and help when Charles’s diagnosis was made public and the answer was a firm thanks but no thanks.

I wonder if this argument is how some people somehow manage to make allowances for AMW - another victim of the “unfair hierarchy”, having to cope with his relative unimportance compared to his brother, all grown up now but still excused his poor behaviour over the years and still. Urgh.

Harry could have stayed and accepted his very privileged position . He and Meghan would never have had to worry about money , housing , security etc BUT , being a couple of jealous brats they flounced off because they were never going to be the same as William and Catherine .
They didn’t “ flee for their lives” or any of the other nonsense statements that supporters claim . They simply didn’t want to be less important that W and C.