Chirton Church of England Primary School, based in a remote area of Wiltshire, in the United Kingdom, was facing closure after numbers had fallen to just 19 students.
That was, until the students took part in a ‘persuasive writing’ exercise, where 11 pupils wrote to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, asking them to send young Prince George to the school in the hope that the resulting publicity would save it.
Although 15-month-old George didn’t sign up and enrol, Prince William and Duchess Catherine sent a personalised response praising their efforts, the school and its ethos. That’s not the half of it either – they responded to each and every student individually.
Word soon spread within the community of the royal endorsement and the numbers have now more than doubled to 45.
Associate head-teacher Amy Bekker-Wrench spoke proudly of the story, telling the Daily Express: “I’m very very keen on the children writing for a purpose and when it came to our unit on persuasive writing we talked about who we could write to.
“We decided it would be amazing if Prince George could be enrolled at the school because that would encourage other people to join.
“We were over the moon getting these letters back, they just landed on my desk.
“The story got a lot of publicity and certainly got people talking about us and got us a lot of publicity, and since then it has just gone a bit mad.”
The governing board of the school was last year forced into discussions of closure after student numbers dwindled below 20, making it unviable to remain open. So it was in December that the students took up their pens to write the letters to royalty and by February this year they had received their replies and suddenly prospects were looking up for the tiny country school.
Amy continued: “We’ve got 45 pupils now and there’s hardly a week that goes by when we’re not showing prospective families round the school.
“Very frequently the visitors will say they heard about the letters from the Royal family – only yesterday someone said that.
“The letters from the children came from the heart and I think it probably did show the school off and that got people interested.”
One of the students named Keeleigh, shared the response that she received: “Their Royal Highnesses were impressed by your persuasive comments.
“You certainly made a wonderful case for Chirton Primary with its beautiful large grounds being the ideal school for Prince George.”
Another student, Christopher was told in his letter that the school’s “sense of community” would indeed have made it an ideal school for the young prince.
All talks of closure have now ceased and the local council has joined in talks with the school’s governing board about the prospects of expansion. And it’s all thanks to the help of a wonderful young prince named George!
