Princess Leonor hugs her mother, Queen Letizia, and her sister, Infanta Sofía, in the presence of her father, King Felipe VI, before traveling to Wales to continue her studies, this Monday at Madrid airport. House of HM the King / Europa Press
Princess Leonor has joined the
Atlantic College
of
UWC
on
Monday
, the educational center located twenty-six kilometers from the city of Cardiff (United Kingdom), where she will study two years of the International Baccalaureate. The Royal Family has distributed to the media images of the farewell, at Madrid's Barajas airport, with which many Spanish families can easily identify: a teenage girl hugging her sister and parents tightly before embarking on her first life adventure In solitary. Leonor, who already has a complete vaccination schedule, will not have to quarantine upon arrival at the medieval castle of
St. Donat
(San Donato), in the Welsh valley of Glamorgan.
You will have to undergo a PCR on the second day of entering the UK, as required by British law.
More information
King Felipe jokes with Princess Eleanor during a visit to La Zarzuela by his future classmates in Wales
The heiress to the Crown of Spain joins an obviously exclusive academic institution, but whose peculiarities, both in the mission it pursues and in the diversity of class and origin that its admission process entails, that make it the favorite of aristocrats, millionaires or bohemian intellectuals. "Hogwarts for hippies", the school defined a little more than three years ago by
The Times
newspaper
,
in reference to the medieval building where the character Harry Potter learned his magic. Its founding statute proclaims the objective of "making education a force capable of uniting peoples, nations and cultures for the benefit of peace and a sustainable future."
Princess Leonor will share classrooms and facilities with about 350 students of 90 nationalities.
At least half of them receive scholarships and grants from private benefactors, or pay for their studies with part of the income generated by students who pay their tuition.
In the case of Leonor, who passed the first two admission tests from strict anonymity - according to the center's management - the cost of the International Baccalaureate, with a two-year program, will cost 76,000 euros, which will be provided in the annual allocation of the Kings, according to sources from Zarzuela.
Today the Princess of Asturias joins the “UWC Atlantic College” in Wales.
In the image, Leonor says goodbye to her family in Barajas, House of HM the King
The princess will share a room with three other students, and her daily routine will begin at eight in the morning. Under the discreet guardianship of tutors, the boarding school has nothing to do with the cold shower legend and strict discipline of traditional British boarding schools. 5% of UWC students are refugees from conflict areas such as Palestine, Yemen, Iraq or Afghanistan. The current president of the institution is Queen Noor of Jordan, who replaced Nelson Mandela. Dinner is served at six in the afternoon, and at nine thirty at night all students should be in their rooms. Leonor will share a course with another princess, Alexia de Holanda, second in line to the throne of that country.
“We help our students to discover the real possibility to change things (...) through a courageous attitude, personal example and altruistic leadership. We support adolescents to reach their full intellectual, moral, aesthetic, emotional, social, spiritual and physical potential ”, proclaim the models and principles of the school network. The institution was founded by the German pedagogue, Kurt Hahan, the same He raised Gordonstoun College, in Scotland, where the late Prince Philip of Edinburgh and the current heir to the Crown of the United Kingdom, Charles of England, carried out part of their studies. Atlantic College was the first (1962) of a network of educational centers around the world that make up the
United World Colleges.
The institute is located in a 12th century castle, extensively remodeled in 1925, after it was bought by American media mogul William Randolph Hearst. "The place that God would have built if he had money," described the place playwright George Bernard Shaw.
The Royal House assures that the princess, who will turn 16 next October, will maintain her institutional presence and public commitments as heir to the Throne, although it has not been detailed how these obligations will be compatible with a rigid academic regime that involves more than five hours of class per day, as well as time devoted to community service, physical activities, and creative workshops. In addition to studying various subjects that include science, art and humanities, Princess Eleanor will have to complete three specific tasks to obtain her international baccalaureate diploma: write an essay of no more than 4,000 words on a subject of special interest to which she will dedicate two years of investigation; complete a Theory of Knowledge course, which teaches students to understand “how they know what they claim to know”;and a “creativity, activity and service” workshop that allows them to acquire social and community service skills and greater contact with nature.
Felipe VI also attended, during his time as Prince of Asturias, the year prior to university at an institute in Canada.
