With Prince George set to attend secondary school next year, one expert believes the Prince and Princess of Wales will delay announcing which institution he will attend

Prince George is likely to attend either Eton College or Marlborough College(Image: AP)

The firstborn child of Prince William and Princess Kate is set to make a huge change next year, as Prince George will transition to secondary school in September 2026. And while it is still unknown where the young prince will attend, one expert believes the Prince and Princess of Wales will keep his choice of school under wraps until the very last minute.

The two frontrunners for George to attend next year are Eton College, where both Prince William and Prince Harry attended and is located close to where the Wales family live on the Windsor estate, and Kate’s alma mater Marlborough College in Berkshire, where George would likely be a boarder.

Kate and William are likely to keep the choice of George’s secondary school a secret(Image: Andrew Parsons / Kensington Palace)

It has been speculated that William and Kate are still tossing up which school to send their eldest son to, but once they do make the huge decision, it is likely they will keep it under wraps until “the eleventh hour”. Melanie Sanderson, Managing Editor of The Good Schools Guide, explained why, as she told HELLO! that announcing such a choice too early would cause a stir with the school, and those who would be the young prince’s classmates.

Sanderson told the publication: “If the Wales family runs true to form, they will announce Prince George’s secondary school at the eleventh hour, possibly as late as September 2026. They understand that the school itself, as well as George’s new peer group, will fall under intense scrutiny as soon as it is revealed and will probably want to minimise this, allowing the young royal to transition to his new school with as little fanfare as possible.”

Prince George will attend secondary school in September 2026

As for which school George will be enrolled in, Melanie argued: “I believe Eton is the most likely choice for Prince George. In our most recent review, we describe it as ‘traditional, radical, expectation-busting and packed with confident boys with nary a hint of entitlement’. To me, this encompasses all the values we are told are important to this generation of royals.”

If William and Kate do decide to hold off on the announcement of George’s school choice, it would follow a pattern of their past declarations around their children’s education. When the Wales family moved from London to Windsor in 2022, it was just two weeks before the school term started when they announced that George, Charlotte and Louis would be attending Lambrook.

William and Kate announced their children would be attending Lambrook just two weeks before they started school (Image: Jonathan Brady – Pool/Getty Images))

At the time, the statement from the palace read: “The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have today announced that Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis will attend Lambrook School in Berkshire from September 2022. Their Royal Highnesses are hugely grateful to Thomas’s Battersea where George and Charlotte have had a happy start to their education since 2017 and 2019 respectively and are pleased to have found a school for all three of their children which shares a similar ethos and values to Thomas’s.”

Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond told the Mirror that with less than a year until George makes the transition to secondary school, she believes his school has already been decided.She said: “Yes this is a big year ahead, as George becomes a teenager and, as William hinted when talking about phones, he’s clearly exploring a few boundaries. I suppose his new school has already been decided. Personally, I think it’s a great shame if he’s going to be sent away to board and I would have thought that would go against some of Catherine’s central beliefs. On the other hand, she went to boarding school and seemed to enjoy it, so I suppose she feels ready to cross that bridge with George.”