With schools in Australia and around the world gradually beginning to reopen, many parents are now faced with the tough decision of whether to send their children back to school, or continue to home school them in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s a situation that’s all too familiar for Duchess Catherine, 38, and Prince William, 37, who are reportedly considering keeping Prince George, six, and Princess Charlotte, five, home at their Norfolk residence Anmer Hall despite their school Thomas’s Battersea reopening next month.
“The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are considering keeping Princess Charlotte at home next month when her school is expected to reopen,” a new report from The Sunday Times explains.
Adding: “William and Kate are understood to be eager to keep Prince George and Charlotte together, and to maintain their lockdown routine.”
The report claims Charlotte’s reception year group (the Australian equivalent of kindergarten), would be looking to return first, while Prince George, who is in year two, hasn’t been given a return date yet.
According to The Times, the royal children’s school is “expected to follow government guidance on schools, bringing back only children in reception, year 1 and year 6 in to the classroom — not George’s year group. The private school will make a final decision this week.”
In a previous statement, the school confirmed they’d be moving all learning online. “We have asked parents to keep their children at home and to access their lessons through this system. This will ensure that children have continuity of learning when they are unable to attend school,” a spokesperson said at the time.
It’s unkown if William and Catherine have outsourced the homeschooling of their children to a professional teacher, however the family do employ the services of fulltime nanny Maria Borrallo.
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The royal children will continue to be home-schooled for the foreseeable future.
(Image: Getty)In April, the Duke and Duchess admitted isolating with three young children was no easy task.
“It’s been ups and downs, like a lot of families self-isolating. George is much older than Louis is and things, but they are aware, I’m always surprised,” Kate told the BBC.
“And although you don’t want to scare them and make it too overwhelming, I think it is appropriate to acknowledge it in the simple ways and age-appropriate ways.”
Kate also confessed she’d continued to homeschool George and Charlotte over the Easter break.
“Don’t tell the children, we’ve actually kept it going through the holidays. I feel very mean!” she laughed.
“The children have got such stamina, I don’t know how. Honestly, you get to the end of the day and you write down the list of all the things that you’ve done in that day. So, you pitch a tent, take the tent down again, cook, bake. You get to the end of the day — they have had a lovely time — but it is amazing how much you can cram into one day that’s for sure.”
“The children have got such stamina, I don’t know how,” Kate has said of her three young ones in lockdown.
(Image: Getty)Thomas’s Battersea is considered one of the best schools in London. The co-ed school costs around $AUD28,607 per year.
Upholding a set of core values – kindness, courtesy, confidence, humility and learning to be givers, not takers – the elite school holds an impressive record of senior school entrance and scholarship successes.
In fact, the Tatler Schools Guide says the “cream of the Battersea crop rises to the likes of Eton and Wycombe Abbey.”
The school, which is just a stone’s throw from the Cambridge’s 1A Kesinginton Palace HQ, currently has 544 day pupils, aged between four and 13.
Students are taught a diverse range of theoretical and practical subjects ranging from ballet, drama, music, art and technology.
With language a key part of the curriculum, George and Charlotte will reportedly be learning French before they later move onto Mandarin. In years 4 and 5, the royal siblings will also have the option to learn Spanish.
