Royals opt to stay local in choosing Charlotte’s school
BRITAIN: With a 2-year-old to get ready for nursery school, not to mention a four-year-old for primary school, Prince William and wife Catherine have made a decision almost any parent will sympathise with: cut the school run.
Princess Charlotte is to start at a nursery school around the corner from her home in Kensington Palace from January, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge announced yesterday.
The fourth in line to the British throne will begin fulltime at Willcocks Nursery School, a private school that teaches French and pottery. The fees are £1800 (NZ$3430) a term for afternoons and £3050 (NZ$5820) for mornings.
Unusually, it is not part of the British government’s scheme to offer 30 hours of free childcare a week to parents.
Kensington Palace announced the news alongside the release of a family photograph of the duke and duchess with their children.
It features a squirming Prince George with his left shoe apparently slipping off, and Charlotte in a pair of smart blue patent shoes. Both appear to be wearing the same outfits that they wore when the family went to Poland and Germany on a royal state visit in July.
The nursery school, which is in Holy Trinity Church on Prince Consort Rd, describes itself as a ‘‘traditional nursery school which strives to maintain its ethos for high standards, excellence and good manners’’.
Willcocks children have visited the Royal College of Art, ‘‘where they create their own works of art, exhibited for parents and the public to see’’, its last report by British schools inspector Ofsted said. ‘‘Their appreciation of music is enhanced by regular visits from the Royal College of Music, which enables them to explore the sounds that different instruments make.’’
Willcocks was last inspected by Ofsted in December 2012, when it received an ‘‘outstanding’’ rating.
Charlotte will be attending the school fulltime, a spokeswoman for Kensington Palace said.
While the princess’s older brother followed one family tradition by attending Westacre, a Montessori nursery school in Norfolk, when the royal couple lived at Anmer Hall, Charlotte follows in a new one that is being established by her parents: a preference for going local.
Charlotte’s attendance at Willcocks will come at a busy time for the royals. A younger sibling is expected in April, and she is to gain an aunt when her uncle Prince Harry marries his American fiancee Meghan Markle in May. – The Times