Why Charlotte and George should go to state schools
Those royal announcements keep on coming. As well as the big wedding date, we now know that little Princess Charlotte is to start school after Christmas at Willcocks Nursery near Kensington Palace.
The Princess has won a coveted morning place, which will mean very little to anyone who lives in the real world, but will bring on a collective gnashing of teeth among the capital’s Tiger Mums.
All posh London nurseries operate this two-tier morning and afternoon system, and many an admissions secretary has dined well on the promise of moving a child’s name to the morning register — a fact that is reflected in the costing differentials: just over £3,000 a term for the morning session, £1,800 for the afternoons.
No doubt Charlotte will be very happy there under the careful supervision of the head-teacher, Lavinia Lechmere Loveday Taylor, who not only sounds like a character out of Mary Poppins, but also seems to have modelled her school along similar principles, with plenty of wholesome outdoor activity and characterbuilding exercises.
STiLL, i can’t help thinking that £3,000 a term is an awful lot to pay for what inevitably boils down to a bit of finger-painting. especially given William’s declared intentions of bringing up the children, as he told an American magazine last year, ‘with more simple aspirations’.
‘The materialism of the world i find quite tricky sometimes,’ he said. ‘i would like George and Charlotte to grow up being a little bit more simple in their approach and their outlook and just looking after those around them and treating others as they would like to be treated themselves.’
Well, if that really is the case, Willcocks is going to drive him nuts. Described by Tatler as a ‘mix of old english families and chic foreigners’, i’d say the chances of Charlotte genuinely experiencing anything approximating an awareness of the real world — or anything other than pure materialism — are remote.
William has spoken with so much passion and eloquence about his desire to bring the Royal Family closer to the people in the way his mother did. Yet this choice — as well as the decision to send George to £20,000-a-year Thomas’s in Battersea — simply does not bear this out.
i understand the impulse to provide Charlotte with a familiar, safe environment. But the Cambridges could have the pick of any nursery — or primary school — in their leafy corner of Kensington. Plenty are not only lovely but outstanding academically — and you don’t have to pay a £150 (non-refundable) deposit simply to get on the waiting list.
That’s right, i’m talking state. Where genuinely ordinary children from normal families go to school. Where Charlotte could find herself at a play-date in the house of someone who doesn’t have a butler or a chauffeur — indeed, whose parents maybe even do those sorts of jobs.
Where siblings share rooms and where not everyone disappears off to the Caribbean for Christmas.
Where for a few hours a day she doesn’t have to be a princess but can enjoy being a normal toddler surrounded by other normal toddlers.
What a wonderful gift that would be for a child like Charlotte. it would enable her to truly understand — in a way you can only do if you experience it first hand — the social mix of her country.
To teach her not to fear, pity or patronise those less fortunate than her, but to respect and understand them and, who knows, even make lifelong friends with some of them.
it would take nothing away from her royal status to experience these things; indeed, it would enhance it.
it was a truth that Diana, for all her faults, understood so well. i used to think her son did, too. But now i’m not so sure.