Prince George Heads to Eton: What Boarding Life Looks Like for the 13-Year-Old
Prince George, aged 13, will start at Eton College in September 2026, following his father Prince William and uncle Prince Harry through the same school gates. Kensington Palace confirmed the placement on 16 June 2026 BBC News.
The school fees run to roughly £63,000 a year BBC News. George's previous school, Lambrook, charged £10,669 per term when he boarded there at age 12 Daily Mail. The jump to Eton represents a step up both in cost and profile — the college has educated 20 British prime ministers alongside its two most famous royal alumni The Sun.
For a boy who turned 13 in the summer of 2025 and waved goodbye to his prep school that same season The Sun, the mechanics of Eton life will be structured around a calendar of leave weekends. According to the Eton College term date schedule, boys get "short leave" breaks on top of half-term holidays, which are classed as "long leave." The first short leave weekend runs from Friday 2 October to Sunday 4 October, allowing George to return home Hello!.
Eton also runs what it calls "B weekends" throughout the year. Boys may go out on a Saturday and must return by 6.15pm on Sunday — a regular rhythm of departures and check-ins that keeps the boarders connected to family without disrupting the school week Hello!.
Every Eton boy gets his own private study-bedroom. There are no shared dormitories. The school says this policy is intended to encourage "self-discipline" in meeting tasks and deadlines Hello!. For a future king, that means a room of his own in a house of around 50 boys, with a housemaster and a Dame (the staff member responsible for domestic welfare) overseeing daily life.
The two royal uncles who walked this path before him had very different experiences. Prince William has said he "really enjoyed being able to go about Eton as just another student" and that it was good not to feel "like he was special" Hello!. He started his first day at school back in 2017 — at Thomas's Battersea, not Eton — and his father joked he was lucky to avoid a school-gate tantrum The Sun.
Prince Harry, by contrast, described arriving at Eton as "a profound shock" in his memoir Spare, writing that he felt "in way, way over my head" Hello!. The same institution, two opposite reactions — and no way to know yet which way George's experience will fall.
What makes this more than a routine school enrolment is the simple fact of who George is: second in line to the throne. His time at Eton will play out under public attention that neither his father nor his uncle faced quite the same way, in an era of constant coverage. But the paperwork is ordinary enough. A place has been taken. Fees will be paid. A room is waiting.
