Cover With Harry and Meghan now in the UK, where will Archie and Lilibet go to school? From Prince Harry’s days at Eton to the Wales children in Lambrook, here are the schools that have shaped royal education (Photo: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
With Harry and Meghan now in the UK, where will Archie and Lilibet go to school? From Prince Harry’s days at Eton to the Wales children in Lambrook, here are the schools that have shaped royal education (Photo: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
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From Eton to Marlborough, here’s a guide to the schools attended by Britain’s royal family and where Harry and Meghan’s children could potentially study
With Prince Harry and Meghan now back in the UK, attention is turning to a practical question: where will Archie and Lilibet go to school? Now seven and five, the children are expected to begin the new school year soon, placing their education alongside a royal tradition that has evolved considerably over generations.
From the Spartan Scottish boarding schools favoured by earlier generations to the gentler Berkshire day preps chosen by younger royals, the landscape has broadened—and so have the possibilities. Here, we look at the schools that have defined royal education, alongside newer, more progressive options that could offer a different model for the next generation.
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1. Gordonstoun School, Moray, Scotland
Founded by Kurt Hahn, Gordonstoun built its reputation on seamanship, mountain rescue and Spartan resilience—attended by Prince Philip, King Charles III, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Prince Edward, with Peter and Zara Phillips following later. Its remote Moray coastline setting is central to the ethos—pupils sail, hike and camp as part of the core timetable. Some, like Philip, thrived; Charles famously found it isolating. It remains a full boarding school today, prized for character-building over academic pressure alone.
2. Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire
Eton is the institution most synonymous with royal schooling—William attended, Harry too, and George will follow in September 2026. Its proximity to Windsor Castle, house-master pastoral structure and centuries-old academic record made it a natural fit for working royals, with strong Oxbridge placement. Boys join at 13 and live across 25 boarding houses, each with its own traditions. One of the most traditional choices for Harry and Meghan, it remains single-sex and largely boarding, distinct from newer co-educational day preps.
3. Ludgrove School, Wokingham, Berkshire
Both William and Harry spent their prep years—ages eight to 13—behind Ludgrove’s secluded 130-acre Berkshire campus, built to prepare pupils for Common Entrance exams into schools like Eton. Its rural, enclosed grounds offered privacy London day schools could not match, while its sporting record, particularly in rugby and cricket, has long fed senior public school teams. It remains predominantly boarding and all-boys for older years, with weekly exeats rather than daily attendance.
4. Lambrook School, Ascot, Berkshire
Lambrook is the current template for royal prep education—52 co-educational acres hosting Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. Its day and flexi-boarding options, established security infrastructure and single site for pupils aged three to 13 reflect a shift away from the boarding-first model of earlier generations, favouring domestic stability. The campus includes a nine-hole golf course, a pool and a working farm.
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5. Hill House School, London
Tucked in Knightsbridge, Hill House educated a young Charles, making him the first heir apparent schooled outside a palace rather than by private tutors. It remains known for its distinctive burgundy-and-gold uniform and an international pupil base drawn from London’s diplomatic and business community. Hill House caters to a wide age range from four through to 13, across several affiliated London sites.
6. Wetherby School, London
Wetherby Pre-Prep in Notting Hill educated both William and Harry during their early London childhoods, integrating them with the children of the capital’s professional and creative families. An all-boys school for ages four to eight, it has long served as a direct feeder into Ludgrove and other Berkshire boarding preps, giving it an established pipeline into the traditional royal educational route that continues today.
7. Marlborough College, Wiltshire
Marlborough, alma mater of Princess Catherine and Princess Eugenie, is a co-educational senior school balancing academic rigour with strong arts and sport provision across a large Wiltshire campus housing roughly 1,000 pupils. It sits apart from Eton’s single-sex, all-boarding model, and its royal association shows how the schools linked to the family have expanded beyond the traditional Eton pipeline, with a particular reputation for music, drama and art.
8. ACS Cobham International School, Surrey
Set on a 128-acre gated estate, ACS Cobham follows an American curriculum track, serving the children of diplomats, executives and entertainment figures. It has no direct royal alumni history, but it represents the internationally minded, security-conscious campuses increasingly common among prominent families with ties abroad, offering continuity for pupils moving between education systems and a student body drawn from more than 70 countries.
9. Bedales School, Hampshire
A more progressive option for Harry and Meghan, Bedales is known for rejecting uniforms and rigid hierarchy in favour of independent thinking and a strong arts and environmental curriculum, including a working farm tended by pupils. Bedales has a notable history of royal attendance through Princess Margaret’s children, David Armstrong-Jones (Earl of Snowdon) and Lady Sarah Chatto. Its student-led ethos illustrates how far British independent education has diversified beyond the Spartan, hierarchy-driven schooling of earlier royal generations, remaining one of the few schools still built around that founding philosophy.
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After more than a decade in lifestyle media, Clifford has mastered the art of writing seriously about things that are fun—and writing fun things about people who take themselves very seriously. At Tatler Asia, he helped steer its flagship lists, Tatler’s Most Influential and Asia’s Most Stylish. And today, he leads T-Labs, Tatler Asia’s content innovation hub, where he continues the noble pursuit of lifestyle storytelling, spinning stories on wealth, entertainment, necessary style, Hallyu, Hollywood, beauty and more for audiences across Asia.
