LONDON: Britain’s Prince George started his first day of school on Thursday but palace officials said his pregnant mother Kate was too unwell to attend and he was dropped off by his father Prince William.
Four-year-old George, who is third in line to succeed Queen Elizabeth II after his father and grandfather Prince Charles, is attending Thomas’s Battersea, a private school in a leafy area of south London.
Father and son were met on arrival at the school gates by Helen Haslem, headteacher for the younger children, who then took them to Prince George’s new classroom.
George, whose formal title is Prince George of Cambridge, will be known as George Cambridge to his classmates at the £17,600-a-year (19,200-euro, $23,000) school.
He was dressed in the school uniform of navy blue v-neck pullover, shorts and black shoes.
George turned four on July 22 and will therefore be one of the youngest in his year as British children start their schooling in September after their fourth birthday.
His sister Princess Charlotte, aged two, stayed at home in Kensington Palace.
Prince George’s big day has caused a flurry of media interest in Britain, where every aspect of royal life is heavily scrutinized.
The Daily Telegraph even offered fashion tips for other mothers dropping off their children at the same school, instructing them to “wear nothing too challenging.”
“No one will want to feel as though they are out-dressing a duchess,” the paper said, adding that Kate would fit in well when she joins the school run with her “middle-class off-duty-dressing.”
Kensington Palace on Monday announced that William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, were expecting their third child.
Kate has been forced to cancel two public engagements since then because of the same acute morning sickness she has suffered in her previous pregnancies.
William spoke about her illness during a visit to a mental health conference on Tuesday, saying: “There’s not much sleep going on at the moment.”
“We need Catherine to get over this first bit and then we can start celebrating. It’s always a bit anxious to start with, but she’s well,” he said.
Kate has not yet reached the 12-week stage when women normally make the news public but made the announcement after she had to cancel an engagement.
Hyperemesis gravidarum causes excessive nausea and vomiting and affects around one in every 100 pregnant women, according to the state-run National Health Service (NHS).
Some women report being sick up to 50 times a day, and while most common in early pregnancy, symptoms can continue throughout the nine months.
William and Kate moved back to London from their rural home in eastern England this summer as they take over more engagements from the aging senior royals.
The 91-year-old queen has reduced her public events in recent years and Prince Philip, her 96-year-old husband, officially retired in August.
William gave up his job as an air ambulance pilot in July and relocated his family from Anmer Hall in Norfolk to their apartment at Kensington Palace.
Prince George starts first day of school
Prince George starts first day of school
Incoming: The biggest movies due out before summer 2026
- From Baby Yoda’s big-screen debut to the return of Miranda Priestly, here are some of the biggest films heading our way in the next few months
‘Project Hail Mary’
Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, Lionel Boyce
Due out: March
MGM paid a reported $3 million to acquire the rights to this 2021 sci-fi novel by Andy Weir (author of “The Martian”), which has now been adapted for this blockbuster starring Gosling as Dr. Ryland Grace. Grace wakes up on a spacecraft with no memory of who he is or why he’s there. He gradually works out that he’s the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system hoping to find a way to fix the results of a “catastrophic event” on Earth. Fortunately, it turns out Grace is kind of a science genius. Equally fortunately, it turns out he may not have to save the world all on his own.
‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Pena
Due out: January
After its premiere at Fantastic Fest last year, Variety described Verbinski’s sci-fi action comedy as “an unapologetically irreverent, wildly inventive, end-is-nigh take on the time-loop movie” with a “hyper-referential script … full of inside jokes for gamers.” The guy stuck in that time loop is Rockwell’s man from the future, who’s on his 118th attempt to save the world from a rogue artificial intelligence. To do so, he needs to convince just the right mix of misfits from the late-night patrons of a diner in Los Angeles to undertake what could well be a suicide mission.
‘Wuthering Heights’
Director: Emerald Fennell
Starring: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau
Due out: February
Fennell’s latest feature is billed as a “loose adaptation” of Emily Bronte’s 1847 Gothic classic —the story of the ill-fated passion shared between the well-to-do Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a young man of low social standing and uncertain ethnic origins, in the moorlands of Yorkshire in northern England. Warner Bros. are playing up the love-story side of Bronte’s layered and often troubling novel, setting a Valentine’s week release.
‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’
Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Voice cast: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day
Due out: April
Critics were not especially kind to 2023’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” but that certainly didn’t dissuade audiences, who made it the second-highest grossing film of that year, behind only “Barbie.” With the same team returning to helm and voice the movie (with the additions of Benny Safdie and Brie Larson to the cast), chances are that “Galaxy” will have much the same reaction from the two groups as the eponymous Brooklyn plumber and his brother Luigi head into outer space with Princess Peach and Toad to take on Bowser’s son, Bowser Jr (Safdie).
‘Michael’
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Jaafar Jackson, Nia Long, Miles Teller
Due out: April
The biggest biopic of the year will likely be this feature about one of the most culturally significant music stars in history, Michael Jackson — aka The King of Pop. It depicts his journey from child star in the Jackson 5 to global superstar in the Eighties, and reportedly does not whitewash the allegations of child sexual abuse that dogged the singer for years (with producer Graham King saying he wanted to “humanize but not sanitize” Jackson’s story) — although Michael’s own daughter, Paris, has described the script as “sugar-coated” and “dishonest.”
‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’
Director: David Frankel
Starring: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt
Due out: May
With all the original stars returning (despite the reported initial reluctance of Streep and Hathaway to do so) along with the director and main producer, this sequel to the acclaimed 2006 comedy drama about aspiring journalist Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Hathaway), who lands a job as PA to an absolute nightmare of a fashion-magazine editor — Miranda Priestly (Streep) should be a guaranteed hit. If it sticks to the story of Lauren Weisberger’s “Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns,” then we’ll find that Andy, a decade on, is now herself the editor of a bridal magazine and planning her own wedding. But she’s still haunted by her experiences with Miranda.
‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’
Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, Jeremy Allen White
Due out: May
The latest feature from the “Star Wars” franchise builds on one of its most successful TV spinoffs, “The Mandalorian.” It sees bounty hunter Din Djarin (aka The Mandalorian) and his one-time target-turned-adoptive son Grogu — the Force-sensitive infant from the same species as the Jedi master Yoda — enlisted by the New Republic to help them combat the remaining Imperial warlords threatening the galaxy after the collapse of the Galactic Empire.
