Thomas’s Battersea first came to public attention back in September 2017 when Prince George attended his first day of primary school.
Prince William and Princess Kate then made the decision to also send their daughter Princess Charlotte there when the time came.
The siblings happily remained at the school, under the names George and Charlotte Cambridge, until 2022, when they started the new school year at Lambrook in Berkshire, joined by their younger brother, Prince Louis.
George and Charlotte weren’t the only royals to attend Thomas’s, however.
Sophie Winkleman and her husband, Lord Frederick Windsor, also selected the prestigious £20,000-a-year facility when it came to their daughters’ education. The couple, who have been married since 2009, are parents to Maud, nine, and seven-year-old Isabella.
However, they decided to take their children out of the school upon learning that pupils were given iPads to use from the age of six.
Speaking to The Times, Peep Show star Sophie – also the half-sister of Claudia Winkleman – spoke about her concerns about the use of devices amongst young children.
She said she “immediately started looking for a different school” when she learned pupils were “going to be given tablets, all of them from Year One to Year Six”.
Sophie did speak out in praise of the school but said it no longer suited her children as she shared concerns about the normalized use of online learning.
“The internet is a toxic wilderness we’re letting children stumble through without protection,” she said, revealing that her eldest daughter is allowed to use a tablet for a limited time period on Sundays.
Sophie is an acclaimed actress who has appeared in shows such as Poirot and Two and a Half Men alongside Ashton Kutcher.
She has a close connection to the royal family through her husband; Frederick’s father Prince Michael of Kent was first cousin to the late Queen.
Sophie in 2017: “Prince Charles sensed correctly that everything would be chaos at home, so he asked his cook, instead of taking care of him, to take care of us.” She continued: “So, our lunches and dinners were cooked at Clarence House then delivered for weeks on end while I was in the hospital and then still disabled at home.”
