The Royals with Roya and Kate - Inside Prince George’s new life at Eton College

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Prince George started at Eton College this week, following in his father's footsteps at Britain's most prestigious school. But what will his new life as a 13-year-old boarding pupil be like? Roya Nikkhah and Kate Mansey are joined by Melanie Sanderson, managing editor at The Good Schools Guide, to understand what the future king can expect - from the Eton terms he’ll have to learn, the mobile phone ban currently in place, and the people he will meet from different walks of life.They discuss how royal educations have evolved over the generations - from the late Queen Elizabeth II’s home schooling, to King Charles’s tough experience at Gordonstoun School - as well as how likely we are to see a future king or queen attend a state school. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to press follow at the top of your podcast app. Get in touch: [e-mail]: GettyProducer: Natalie KtenaVideo Producer: Eve ChadbournExecutive Producer: Dan BoxWatch us on YouTube.Read more: Prince George arrives for first day at Eton College Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Royals, the podcast where we discuss what happens behind the palace walls and why it matters. I'm Kate Manzi. And I'm Royan Nika. What does it take to educate a future king? This week, Prince George arrived at Eton College, following in the footsteps of his father, Prince William, and his uncle, Prince Harry. For generations, the royal family has wrestled with how best prepare an heir for the throne, while allowing them to grow up away from the public gaze. Now, William and Catherine face that same delicate balance.

So why did they choose Eton? What lessons can be learnt from previous Royal School Days? And can a future king ever be treated like an ordinary pupil? Well, joining us to explore those questions, we're delighted to be joined by Melanie Sanderson, managing editor of the Good Schools Guide. Melanie, welcome to the Royals. Thank you.

So Melanie, we have just seen all these images of Prince George arriving at Eton and I'm sure that's going to dominate a lot of the coverage this week. Just gives a little bit of an idea, scenes as to what kind of school it is that George is embarking on now. It's a great question because I think most of your listeners will be quite surprised to hear is that it's surprisingly normal in terms of its intake. And whilst George will be joining, some families in similar situation to his own children of the great and the good globally, there will also be a number of very ordinary families there, pupils who are perhaps on bursaries,

scholarships, and of course, you know, families who are hardworking professional people. So I think we're led to believe that it's a very rarefied environment. And of course, it is a place of immense privilege. But George, possibly for the first time, will be really exposed to people from all different walks of life and a very, very international group of people as well. You mentioned there the idea and the notion around its public image of being a sort of bastion of elitism and privilege. Do you think that's unfair now for a reason or does that still represent quite a big part of it?

You can never call it unfair. When you're looking at the nation as a whole, of course it is an immensely privileged environment. But I think what people don't understand is that there is still a range of families send their children there. Well, it's interesting. Obviously, we heard, didn't we, from the Palace Roy, that there's been so much consideration, as with any parents sending their kid to school. Behind the scenes, we know that Kate William went to visit Marlborough College, where Kate went to school,

and that there was so much thinking about how this would play out. We know that Prince William had a really nice time there. He's got really fond memories of being nurtured at Eton and was largely left alone to have a kind of private education there. The announcement finally came in June that this was where the couple would be sending George. It came from Kensington Palace. It didn't come from William or Catherine in direct quotes as such. What do you think Roya ultimately made sense for them to send George there? I know that a lot of the coverage has suggested that they looked at lots of other schools,

but I was told quite a few years ago now by someone very close to the family and very close to Prince George, actually a godparent, Prince George, that Eden was always the frontrunner. And they were certain that that was where William and Catherine were going to send Prince George and where he would go. And I think what plays into that is definitely the geographical thing. You know, the whole idea of weekends, there's a lot of sport that goes on. I think that, you know, there's a keenness for him to get involved in all that,

but still potentially be able to come home sometimes there at Forest Lodge on the Windsor estate. And I think there's also a very big part of, as much as William is very much about relevance and modernisation in the monarchy, he loves tradition, the traditions that he has enjoyed in his life. And I think we know that even though he and Harry were eaten at very, very difficult times in their life when they just lost their mother, He had a really happy time there. His memories of Eaton are a very happy time, private time, close-knit friends, able to hop over and go and see his granny at Windsor Castle for tea sometimes, keeping foot in with the family. And I think it's quite important for him to feel that George will have a similar experience. That said, I don't think they would have been so tunnel vision to have sent him there if it wasn't the right school for George.

And if George didn't feel that. And clearly George likes what he's seen. but I think that idea of tradition is really important to William. And Melanie, coming to you, I mean, obviously you're across all the schools with your line of work. What advice would you have given to William and Catherine? Is this the school that you would have picked for Prince George? I also said from, you know, two years before it was announced, Eton was very much the frontrunner from my perspective as well.

And I think one of the main reasons for that was, I think, a single sex education for the future heir to the throne would have been a major consideration. I think if you can imagine both William and Harry had all their friendships scrutinised by the media over the years. And for me, it was a bit of a no-brainer that if you can just remove girls from that equation, there's a lot less scrutiny to play out in the public eye. So I felt that that was a really big factor as well. And I also think with Eton being a single-sex environment, what we've written in our review is that boys tend to participate in things where in a mixed school,

girls might dominate. So, you know, art is massive eaten, music is massive eaten. And we're not supposed to generalise, but in mixed schools, you'll still tend to find that girls will gravitate more towards things like modern foreign languages and boys more towards science and maths. And in a single-sex environment, they are given the opportunities and the freedom, I suppose, more so, to really pick and choose what they are interested in. So I think the single-sex side of things will have been really, really important to the family. We talked a little bit, Melanie, about William saying he wants to be a great moderniser, but this is very much part of the tradition, going to a school where fees are in excess of

£60,000 a year. It is a bastion of elitism. We've seen that play out and who goes there and what they go on to do. Is there any tension there and a future king sending another future king to somewhere that is to the outside world seems to be very elitist? I don't see that they had a lot of choice, to be honest. There has been a whole movement. movement of people saying, why didn't they send into the state sector? But the reality of that, with security, with all the things that that entails, it's just not feasible. So really, the options that they had at their fingertips, they're all bastions of elitism, whether they've gone to Marlborough College, whether they'd gone to Eater, they looked at St. Edwards in Oxford.

They were reported to have looked at a number of schools. And all of those schools charge very, very high fees. They're all elite to a greater or lesser extent. George is the future heir to the throne. He does need an element of security. around him. He does need a school that understands how those things work that has educated either people from the British Royal Family or other major families globally. Even the language around it is so different from, you know, for example, I've seen my child off to secondary school for the first time today. It's a completely different world, isn't it? I mean, you know, they call the first semester Micklemurse. Talk us through a bit

about what will be expected of George as he enters that rarefied world of Eaton College. First of all, he'll need to learn all the terms, things that they call their teacher's beaks. You know, they have their own sports that they only play at Eton. But I think it's also really important to remember that George will have grown up with his father talking about this. It won't be new to him. And also, coming from Lambrook, he will have been very well prepared for entry to Eton. Lots of boys will go from Lambrook onto Eton. He's probably gone with a few friends.

So I think, you know, those kinds of traditions that he will be expected to pick up, you know, They're very, very independently minded the boys there. They have to from day one really take care of themselves. They're in single rooms. They're not in dormitories. They've got obviously quite complex uniform to wear. They need to be wearing the right thing at the right time, navigating this huge campus, which is in many ways a bit more like a university than it is like a school.

You know, it's spread across the whole village town of Eaton. So I think he's got a lot on his plate, but he will be very well prepared for that. It's funny, isn't it? the difference in William's experience of Eton and Harry, and we know from Harry's memoirs in spare, he talked about how tough it was and the French teacher talking to him in French and he just couldn't kind of keep up with it and felt that it was all going over his head a bit. And he seemed to really, really struggle there, but William had a much better time. And I suppose the little we know about Prince George that the family share.

We know that he's really interested in history. We heard that, didn't we, in the Eugene Levy interview that William was showing Eugene around Windsor Castle and said, oh, you know, George knows much more about the history side of it than I do. So presumably George will relish this opportunity to have quite an academic school. I think so. I mean, Harry wrote and spent that he felt academically very overwhelmed, didn't he, and sort of just like a fish out of water there, whereas we know William got on a little bit better. And I think there's a rigorous entrance exam. George obviously passed that to get in. You'd like to think he's academically up to the challenge. Otherwise, I think his parents probably wouldn't think it's a good idea to send him there.

Melanie, in terms of continuity, how important do you think it is? You know, we're not just talking about any 13-year-old boy. We are talking about the future king of this country. Continuity is an important thing, isn't it? It's not just about the traditions of, you know, William went there and so must George. There's also a sort of issue with George in terms of what his future looks like, what his past would have looked like. Constitutionally, when does a constitutional education begin? How important is Eaton playing into that in terms of what it can offer educationally?

You know, we talk a lot about George trying to have a normal upbringing, and that's what William and Catherine have tried to give him an R. But his education is going to be different to other people, isn't it? It's potentially much wider because you have the education side, but then also the constitutional education too. Absolutely. And the other thing that's a really huge part, I think, of the choice that the family have made for George is the religious side of things. Because of course, it's going to be head of the Church of England as well. And Chapel is absolutely central to life at Eton. And we know that William was confirmed at Eton College in the chapel.

If you've ever been to the chapel there, it's more like a cathedral in most people's eyes. And I think in many of the equivalent schools, or many of the other schools they will have looked at, chapel is still a part of school life, but not quite to the degree that it is at Eton. So it's still very much seven-day-a-week school. They will be expected to attend chapel every Sunday, possibly once during the week as well. and I think constitutionally that's really, really important to George that he's not allowed to let that slip. That's interesting actually.

It sort of reminds me of a story that we had recently about a font that the Duke of Edinburgh, late Prince Philip, saw in a chapel that was being restored and he said, oh, that would look great in Gordonston, which of course was where Charles went to score and miserably. He wanted Charles reportedly to be around these beautiful and kind of rarefied church, So that was sent up to Gordonston then later on return to the chapel. But Charles's experience of education was quite different. It sent off to quite an austere background at Gordonston School up in Scotland,

didn't seem to enjoy the kind of roughy-tuffey nature of it, not like his father who loved its time there. So it's really interesting to see the kind of evolution of royal education and how it works. Even I'm sure Prince George's experience of Eaton's going to be completely different from that of his father as well, because I'm sure it's right, Melanie, isn't it? That Eaton has changed and it's much more, perhaps softer, is that the word? There's much more of a kind of focus on the holistic child, you know, not just the academic status, but about how can look after them, you know, make sure they're okay, look after their mental health and all that sort of thing.

Has Eaton evolved like other schools have over the past few decades? Boarding schools generally have evolved enormously. I would say that when Charles was at Gordson, for example, pastoral care, I mean, the words were probably never even spoken. It wouldn't have existed. And I guess with William, it would have been better, but still not as strong as it is today. And boarding schools generally, Eaton included, are very much focused now on mental health and well-being. They're very supportive environments. There are myriad places where pupils can go if they're feeling overwhelmed, homesick, sad, confused, and anything. I don't think it's softer necessarily. You know, it's a pretty tough environment. It's all male. They're in their own bedroom from day one. There's a lot of expectation on them. And it's very much an environment where the boys themselves are expected to formulate their own education in a way. You know, there's an awful lot for them to do, but very little of it is actually compulsory. Of course, lessons, et cetera, are. But on top of that,

they can really take as much or as little fruit from the tree in terms of the co-curricular side of things as they want to. So it's a big step up for any 13-year-old boy. He is a child after all, but there will be a huge support network around him. And can you just talk us through a little bit, Melanie, how royal education has evolved? Because it has evolved, hasn't it? Although George is going to where his father went, If you just go back a few generations, the then Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, they were homeschooled by their governess.

The late Queen didn't have a formal school education, which seems extraordinary by today's standards. Of course, Charles was then sent away to Gordonsten, not very happily, but he had a school education. He then went to university where he went to Cambridge and Aberyst were two. William and Harry to Eaton, it has evolved. I mean, the notion of homeschooling now for a future king seems distant. But has it evolved with the times? as much as it possibly can do. I mean, we talked right at the beginning of this conversation

about tradition in education, but actually they're still creating the traditions, aren't they? Because they're only really the third generation of their family to go to school at all. The other thing that would surprise most people about Eaton is that it has got a very modern outlook. You know, yes, a huge number of boys will still take Latin A-levels. Some of them will also take Greek. You know, all of those traditional classical subjects are still on offer. but there is a much more modern holistic outlook as well. So I would say that, for example, community service is an enormous part of life at Eton College now. So they might go and read with children in local primary schools or they might do bigger projects to do with the global environment or something like that.

But community service is absolutely huge. I wouldn't anticipate that it was quite the same in Williams time. It probably was a more insular environment. And certainly when Charles was at Gordonston, that would not have been part of his education at all. He would have just been contained within the school environment. So, yeah, I think it is evolving. And I think George will get a suitably modern education as he needs. Coming up, everyone's got a smartphone.

His friends will have smartphones. Every misdemeanor, every little hijinks thing he does is potentially going to be captured and stalled on a smartphone. And I think that will bring. real challenges. It's interesting, isn't it? You talk about Charles being contained in Gordonston, and Kensington Palace has written to newspaper editors and broadcasters to say,

thank you for giving him this private education. He's allowed to have that time to quite rightly grow up away from the cameras. But he won't be contained, well he's forever. What will life look like at Eton? Because he will start to get a bit more freedom. I understand they go out to the local McDonald's or Nandoes or whatever, it is when they get a bit older. Tell us what that progression looks like for George. It'll be really interesting because he will be kept quite contained to a degree initially for

the first couple of terms. And I wouldn't anticipate that he'll be encouraged to go home much during that period of time either. They'll want him to fully integrate, settle in and really form some strong bonds with his peers. But of course he does have to move around the town between lessons. It's not a school that is on a campus where you are just moving around in one building. Like many of us were used to. Different lessons will take place in different parts of the town in different buildings. And then he'll, of course, have to go off to his games periods, which, you know, the rugby pitch may be at one end of the town and the tennis courts at the other.

So he will be moving around in that fairly rarefied environment initially. I understand that there's now signage up around Eaton asking tourists not to take any photographs, which will be interesting to see whether they comply with that. But it's also, I think the uniform is very helpful to George here because they are all identically dressed these boys. And it's almost as though the uniform wears the boy, if you like. You know, when you walk through Eton on a school day, you don't necessarily see faces and hair and people.

You see a sea of tail coats and that very, very formal uniform. And, you know, George will be in a cohort. There's 250 boys in. every year. So there will be an element of camouflage that he is able to benefit from. And I wonder if that was also part of it. He will be sort of indistinguishable from his peers. But as he moves up through the school, you're quite right. Boys generally are allowed to go over the bridge to Windsor, go Fernandez or a pizza express, go to the shops, meet mum in the village for a couple of tea, a slice of cake. They are given quite a lot of freedoms. And that actually is one of the beautiful things about

Eaton College because even though they are in this very prestigious school, they are still face to face with the real world every single day. So that's going to be a very interesting part of George's evolution, I suppose, as a young person. We talk about the evolution of Royal Education, but one of the things that has really evolved, which you touched on there, is the whole idea of social media and smartphones. And that's something that I know is a concern for William and Catherine. And yes, Eaton. controls the use of smartphones by its own pupils and we'll ask you about that, Melanie.

But when they go out into town, it's one thing to ask the public not to take photos. But you've got thousands of people walking through town every day. People will recognise it and people will take photos. And when I wrote a column about this recently, there's never been a better time to be a royal teenager going through education because you are protected. You do have more time away from the cameras

than I think William and Harry did. William and Catherine have carved that out for them. In one way, I suppose. but in another. It's the worst time. Everyone's got a smartphone. His friends will have smartphones. Every misdemeanor, every little high jinx thing he does,

is potentially going to be captured and stalled on a smartphone. And I think that will bring real challenges for George, for the school. He is going to be more scrutinized potentially than any other royal teenager out there and royal teenager previously. Melanie, can you talk to us a little bit about how Eaton manages that issue? And the incoming headmaster next year is quite hot on it, isn't he? Yes, he is. Eaton banned smartphones about two years ago.

I think they issued the boys with what they called the Nokia brick phones. So they were allowed to have those to call home, but they were not allowed any access to the internet or have smartphones at all. And my understanding is that that is policed quite successfully and effectively and that there are quite few transgressions. And I think the parent body, as I understand it, is very much on board with that blanket ban on mobile phones as well. So the incoming head, Alastairnside, formerly of St. Edwards, Oxford, famously banned mobile phones there for the first, I think, two or three years. They had all their mobile phone privileges totally removed. And I would anticipate that he will continue in that vein at Eaton. You know, he saw a massive uplift in people participating in sports, people participating in activities at St. Edwards when they banned the mobile phones. It had a massive siege. change in the whole culture of the schools. So yeah, he's going to be very hot on them, for sure.

That's a sign of a posh school, isn't it, when you get handed your own school Nokia on arrival. Your breath phone. But I suppose what I'm also interested in Melanie is how we know that Eton, okay, it pumps out a lot of Olympic athletes, of course, but also so many prime ministers. Boris Johnson, David Cameron, to name just two. So what is it about Eton that's preparing people for a life in a public role. How can it prepare George for this incredible kind of role as a future head of state, do you think? We've touched on the improvement in the pastoral side.

Historically, that wasn't really there. So when we're talking about our previous prime ministers who went through that system, they would have been prepared for the public life that they had by having to be very, very tough and very confident outwardly, at least, from a really, really young age. And the majority of people can go home and just relax, have a cry on mum and dad's shoulder at the end of the day, if they've had a tough time. But these boys historically will not have had that structure around them.

It would have been a very much sink or swim, law of the jungle place. So that's the past. But going forward, George will still need to be very self-aware, self-confident, independent. He will be expected to have opinions. He'll be expected to be very knowledgeable on certain topics. What they do really well is because there's so much breadth at Eton in terms of what you can do, you can excel academically or you can excel in music or drama or on the sports field. I mean, if you're not good with a rugby ball, you can row or you can fence.

If you don't want to play the piano, you can play the accordion or the lute. That ability of being given multiple opportunities to excel, It's a brilliant way to build confidence in any young person. Harry said that, didn't he, about his time at Eton, that if it hadn't been for the kind of playing fields, he would have had a really miserable time. But for the sport that he was allowed to, clearly he excelled and enjoyed, really contributed to his time there.

Whatever it is, he will have a great opportunity to form his own personality in his own interests and forge his own path, which is going to set him up for his future life. Do you think, Melanie, we will ever see a future king or queen send their children to a state school? Because there was an option. I can remember when William and Catherine were still living in London, they were living at Kensington Palace. And they had one of the best state schools in the country at the bottom, effectively of their drive, St. Mary Abbott's in London, where a lot of prime ministers, David Cameron sent his children there.

Fantastic state school, literally on their doorstep. and they chose to send their children to Thomas's in Battersea, a fair drive away. Now, school is a very personal decision. Well, it's a personal decision if you have money. For a lot of parents, that decision's taken out of for you as well. Do you think we will ever see an heir to the throne educated in the state sector? Realistically, we are some way of, you know, there are multiple reasons for that. George comes with a security detail.

I assume, you know, we're not privy to how that actually works. But, you know, to inflict that on 29 other children in the class whose parents are just sending their child to the local school, it doesn't really seem to me to be very fair. And, you know, you touched on the topic of choice. If you as a parent choose to send your offspring to a school where they may or may not be educated with someone who has a security detail, that is very much your personal choice. but in the state sector, that choice isn't necessarily one that you would ever choose to make. In equally, a head teacher, would they really want the future heir to the throne in their school? It comes with a lot of responsibility, a lot of scrutiny. The headmaster of Eton College, for example, is almost a public figure. Not everybody, but people do know the name of the headmaster of Eton College.

And I think a state school head, state school teachers don't necessarily sign up for that. They're not looking for a public profile, and I think it is different if you're working at or in a very senior leadership position in a school like Eaton. Well, it's fascinating, isn't it? I suppose we'll have to see how he gets on. But interesting to see. Following in the footsteps of the tailcoats. Indeed. Well, we won't be reporting on George much, I don't think.

I'm sure we'll hear updates and he'll be joining his parents on future public engagements as he has done before. Well, that's all from us for this week. A huge thank you to Melanie Sanderson, managing editor of the Good Schools Guide. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thanks to Melanie. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode or find it on YouTube at the Times Royals channel. If you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to like, rate or comment.

It really helps others find the show. We'll be back again next week. But until then, thanks for joining us on the Royals. We'll see you soon. Thank you.