It's easy to feel nostalgic about best friendships from school, made up of secret codes, saved seats and friendship bracelets — and of course, dramatic playground fallouts.
But Princess Charlotte and her brother Prince George, who attend Thomas's School in Battersea, south-west London, aren’t allowed to have one best friend.
That’s because Thomas’s School has special rules in place to make sure that no child feels left out.
The school is strictly inclusive and so encourages the kids to get along with everyone, rather than making “best” friends.
“There’s a policy that if your child is having a party, unless every child in the class is invited, you don’t give out invites in class,” explained Loose Women panelist and former Royal Correspondent, Jane Moore.
The £18,915 a year school, where George is currently in Year 4 and Charlotte in Year 2, makes sure the students live by its motto, ‘Be Kind’. It does this through teaching children its special values: kindness, courtesy, honesty, respect, perseverance, independence, confidence, leadership, humility and being givers, not takers.
“We believe passionately in creating an environment that is caring, safe and, above all, kind,” reads Thomas’s School’s website. “Happy pupils flourish and through our shared school values we encourage everyone to model these every day.”
Their website also explains that the school wants its students “To be prepared to stand out from the crowd; to be the first to respond to someone in need; to stand up for what they believe to be right; to challenge what they know to be wrong; to risk making an unpopular decision, if they believe it to be for the greater good; to earn the trust and respect of others.”
Given the charity work they will be expected to do when they get older, Thomas’s School seems like the perfect place for the young royals.
