EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Kate Middleton stayed home to help George with exams as William travelled to Singapore this month. Now, proud parents face a dilemma over whether to send their elder son to single-sex school next

The Princess of Wales is so committed to her children’s education that she stayed at home while Prince William was in Singapore for his Earthshot Prize awards earlier this month so she could support Prince George as he prepared for school exams.

Now, I hear, the couple face a dilemma over where to send their elder son for the next stage of his education.

‘Catherine is not a fan of single-sex schools,’ a friend of her family, the Middletons, tells me. ‘She did not enjoy her time at Downe House, but loved it at Marlborough College.’

It is said that Kate Middleton was the target of bullies at Downe House, an all-girls boarding school in Berkshire where she endured two miserable terms when she was a teenager.

She was delighted to move to Marlborough College, a co-educational boarding school in Wiltshire, where she excelled in the classroom as well as on the sports field before she went on to St Andrews University, where she met Prince William.

The Princess of Wales is so committed to her children’s education that she stayed at home while Prince William was in Singapore for his Earthshot Prize awards earlier this month so she could support Prince George as he prepared for school exams 

‘Catherine is not a fan of single-sex schools,’ a friend of her family, the Middletons, tells me. ‘She did not enjoy her time at Downe House, but loved it at Marlborough College.’ Pictured: Marlborough

Last month, I disclosed that Catherine had made a secret return visit to her beloved alma mater. ‘Catherine was here the other day,’ a source at the £46,995-per-year boarding college in Wiltshire told me. ‘It’s been the talk of the school.’

Parents speculate that the Princess may be thinking about sending her elder son, Prince George, to Marlborough, where her sister, Pippa, and brother, James, were also pupils. Princess Eugenie, Samantha Cameron and comedian Jack Whitehall are among its other alumni.

George, aged ten, is in Year 6 at Lambrook prep school in Berkshire, but was recently spotted looking around Eton College with his family ahead of a potential move there.

George, aged ten, is in Year 6 at Lambrook prep school in Berkshire, but was recently spotted looking around Eton College (pictured) with his family ahead of a potential move there

His father loved his time at Eton, but his uncle, Prince Harry, wrote in his memoirs, Spare, about how it was the wrong choice of school for him.

All applicants for Year 9 at Eton sit an online pre-test in the autumn term of Year 6, either at their current school or at an agreed centre.

Eton also requests a head teacher’s report covering a boy’s academic strengths, interests and character.

Pupils are then chosen to go forward to the second stage, an assessment later in the academic year before successful candidates are offered a conditional place, pending an entrance exam sat in Year 8. Similar tests are held at around the same time for applicants to Marlborough College.

A Kensington Palace spokesman declines to comment.

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