Prince George to start secondary school at Eton College in September

Kensington Palace announced that Prince George will attend Eton College in September, sending the second in line to the throne to the same Berkshire school his father once attended. The move places the oldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales inside one of Britain’s most visible institutions of class and continuity.

George will be 13 next month, the age at which pupils begin at Eton College. The BBC put annual fees at around £63,000, underlining the exclusivity of the private school and the social distance that still marks royal education from the ordinary state system. For the royal family, the choice also preserves a familiar pattern: Prince William, now the Prince of Wales, studied at Eton before his own path into public life.

The school’s dress code adds to that sense of ritual. People said George will become the latest royal to wear Eton’s black tailcoat, waistcoat and pin-striped trousers, the uniform that has long served as a visual shorthand for the institution itself. At a time when the royal household often tries to balance accessibility with tradition, the image of a future monarch in a centuries-old school uniform carries its own message.

George’s schooling has drawn attention because it sits at the point where private adolescence meets public symbolism. He is still a child, but his next classroom will also be part of the wider story Britain tells about its monarchy: that succession is not only a constitutional fact, but a carefully managed passage through elite institutions that signal discipline, inheritance and permanence.