School Bullying Council

Report By: Nina Rai

London, 16 July, 2012

Today, the Duchess of Cambridge is known for her royal patronage of major charities. But when she first announced the names of the first four charities she intended to support, her choice of BeatBullying raised a lot of eyebrows. Last year during their wedding, William and Kate even asked guests to donate to an anti-bullying charity as wedding gifts

The website BeatBullying, a nonprofit organization, describes itself as UK’s leading bullying prevention charity. It’s an org. Kate holds close to her heart. The Duchess’ patronage to this campaign is said to be due to personal reasons. She is understood to have been a victim of bullying, having been tormented and bullied at the Downe House, a prestigious boarding school in Cold Ash, Thatcham in Berkshire, she attended at age 13.

Apparently, the bullying was so severe that her parents pulled her out after just two terms, in the middle of the school year. She was then enrolled at Marlborough College in April 1996. Even author Sean SmithSean Smith in the preview of his book, “Kate” refers to Middleton’s “unhappy time being bullied at school before finding her feet at Marlborough College.”

When Kate MiddletonKate Middleton arrived at the posh private school she was pretty, clever and adept at sports, but soon girls there allegedly starting making her life an ordeal for her. A former Marlborough classmate Jessica Hay spoke about Kate’s time at Downe House “She hated it, absolutely hated it. The girls were horrible. She was picked on because she was perfect.”

Kate Middleton and Hay shared a dormitory at Marlborough. The latter disclosed that both of them would share late-night heart-to-heart chats. During those girlie talks, Kate Middleton is understood to have confided about her painful experience at Downe House.

In an interview with the Daily Mail Hay said that groups of girls would call Kate names, steal her books or knock it out of her hands. When Kate used to go for lunch and sit down with other students, they would get up and move to another table. At other times they would push her to the back of the lunch queue.

Hay believed they targeted Kate “because she was quite a soft and nice person.” Further in her interview to author Sean Smith for his book, Hay made a shocking claim that Kate Middleton’s alleged bullies even smeared her bed at Downe House with feces. Of course, later Hay claimed she had been misquoted on this. But Smith asserted that he had recorded the interview, and that Hay was not misquoted.

This kind of adverse publicity for Downe House obviously meant it would be one of the few institutions not to have benefited from its connection with Kate Middleton as her alma mater. Susan Cameron, former principal at Downe House, told the Daily Mail that that Kate did not suffer any “serious harassment.”

According to Cameron, its possible that classroom cattiness and teasing could have made Kate Middleton uncomfortable. However, she is believed the “bullying issue has all been blown up” The school headmistress concluded by stating. “Hand on heart; I can almost swear nothing terrible happened to her at Downe House.”

Recently Emma Sayle, one of Catherine classmates, and close friend clarified the matter defending the school. According to her the main aspects of the bullying tale just don’t add up. “There was no poo in her bed because she was a day girl and not a boarder, and she was not bullied for being too perfect. The girls considered perfect were never bullied but idolized. They were the ones ruling the roost… and Kate went on to rule one of the biggest roosts in the world.”

Sayle is quite a feisty person herself, famous for organizing swingers’ parties. She said “It’s true that Downe is a fighting school; any girl who makes it into Downe has fought to be there.” Meanwhile even the other famous alumni of the school Clare BaldingClare Balding and Sophie DahlSophie Dahl have not made any reference to a bullying culture there.

Angie Bray also counters stories of Kate Middleton being bullied. She says: “I had a wonderful time there and I speak as someone who was expelled. The school encouraged independence, and while I took that advice too far I recall the school was then famous for being friendly, and so its alleged association with bullying is bemusing,” added Bray.

Another peer, who like Kate, was pulled out of the school by her parents, recalls: “At Downe I found the girls blindingly clone-like. ‘You mean you didn’t go to Cornwall?’ they said when I told them where I’d been on holiday. They couldn’t understand anyone being different. Bullying has nothing to do with the victim being inferior; it’s about the bullies being scared.”

While, like other private matters, Duchess Kate may not speak about her experience at school, but bullying is something virtually widespread all over the globe. According to Beatbullying 81% of school students say they have been bullied. By speaking up, of her own experience in whatever form, Duchess Kate can help to do a world of good for those myriads of children world over suffering from this heinous malaise.

Source/Reference: Daily Express.co.uk/Shine.com/Daily Mail

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http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12603046-kate-middletons-childhood-victim-of-school-bullying

By
Fay Schlesinger and Hannah Roberts
Last updated at 11:53 AM on 4th April 2011

All smiles: Kate Middleton on her final day at St Andrew’s prep school in Pangbourne

Kate Middleton may have been forced to leave a leading public school by ‘insidious’ girls who wrote her off as skinny and meek, it has emerged.

The 29-year-old spent only two terms at Downe House before leaving in April 1996 for Marlborough College.

As a day girl, not a boarder, she was in the minority in the cliquey environment of a girls’ school, it is understood. And former pupils say her reticent manner and gangly appearance made her a sitting duck for more assertive classmates.

The revelations come ahead of a book which claims to lift the lid on why Miss Middleton’s parents withdrew her from Downe House, where fees are £10,000 a term.

But more lurid claims that female tormentors smeared the 13-year-old’s bed with excrement as part of a targeted hate campaign were last night denied by close friends of Prince William’s fianc

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ée.

Jessica Hay, who shared a dormitory with Miss Middleton after she moved to Marlborough at 14, is reported to have made the allegations when interviewed for the new biography.

Last night, she insisted that Miss Middleton confided in her about cruelty at Downe House during late-night heart-to-hearts.

‘She said that there was a group of girls that called her names and they stole her books and stuff – little things like that. They rounded up on her a bit because she was quite a soft and nice person…

‘When she used to go to lunch she would sit down with people and they all used to get up and sit on another table.’

But Miss Hay contradicted her reported claims about faeces when told that Miss Middleton normally made the journey home to Bucklebury in Berkshire each day – and was unlikely to have regularly used a bed at Downe House.

Lurid claims: Kate Middleton with Jessica Hay, right, who was interviewed for a book about Miss Middleton’s school days

Miss Hay, who has left her job  at a law firm to concentrate on selling her story, claimed she had been misquoted in a News Of The World story previewing the book, called Kate, which is due to be published by best-selling author Sean Smith on May 2.

She said: ‘I found it quite unfair. I didn’t even get any payment for it. My friends are going to be thinking, “She’s sold herself out”.’

Last month, the Mail revealed the significance of Miss Middleton’s decision to select an anti-bullying charity as a cause that ‘resonates’ with her and Prince William.

The inclusion of London-based Beatbullying in the couple’s new charitable foundation was understood to be a subtle admission that she, like two out of three pupils, suffered at the hands of bullies. One 29-year-old, who was in Miss Middleton’s year at Downe House, said this week: ‘Tall and shy – those were her most memorable attributes.

‘You didn’t get much impression of a personality really. She was unrecognisable as the person she is now.’ 

Another schoolmate said: ‘She was fairly quiet and very nice… She didn’t enjoy it because she was a day girl in a school that was 90 per cent boarders.’

And a third said she appeared to suffer from eczema, which is known to flare up when sufferers are stressed. This claim is thought to be backed up in the new book.

At the weekend Miss Middleton’s former headmistress insisted there was no ‘serious’ harassment, but described the ‘catty’ atmosphere and classroom pranks that could have left her feeling ‘like a fish out of water’.

Susan Cameron, who was in charge of Downe House for seven years, told The Mail On Sunday: ‘Yes, there would be teasing.

‘It’s all part of the normal competition of growing up, of establishing a pecking order.

‘I think it’s fair to say Kate was unsettled and not particularly happy’

Susan Cameron, former Downe House mistress

‘Girls are cliquey by nature and they can be rather cruel…They can sense those who are slightly weaker, or who haven’t shown their strengths yet, and it’s those girls who are likely to end up being picked on or teased.

‘Boys will have a bit of a spat and knock someone over but girls will be more insidious and catty. They know where it hurts. I’ve seen my fair share of that. Any school that says they don’t have any bullying at all is probably lying. It depends how you define it.’

‘I think it’s fair to say she was unsettled and not particularly happy. Maybe in Kate’s case she just kind of went quiet and didn’t say anything.’ 

Teenage kicks: Miss Middleton went on to much happier years at Marlborough. Here she is pictured at a house party with friends from the school in 2000

Miss Middleton had been content and popular as a boarder at St Andrew’s private school in Pangbourne until she was 13, before moving to Downe House in Cold Ash, Thatcham, near her parents’ home, in September 1995.

One source told Mr Smith: ‘In our peer group she was regarded as a nonentity. All the social-climbing girls – and there were lots of them at Downe House – thought she was not worth bothering with.’

Royal sources are furious that Miss Hay has made a series of dubious allegations. It was she who said that Miss Middleton had a poster of Prince William on her wall at school – which Miss Middleton denied in an interview last year.

A close friend of Miss Middleton’s said of Miss Hay last night: ‘She is not and never has been a friend. Many claims are just fantasies.’

St James’s Palace declined to comment.

MIDDLETONS REBRAND AMID CLAIMS THEY’RE ‘CASHING IN’

A number of seemingly wedding-related products have been removed from the Party Pieces website of Kate Middleton’s parents and rebranded.

Carole and Mike Middleton, pictured, have dropped products including royal-themed scratchcards and crowned corgi cupcake decorations.

They have also renamed the remaining ‘British Street Party’ products as the ‘Best of British Party’ range, in an apparent attempt to distance the products from the celebrations surrounding their daughter’s wedding.

British Street Party products went on sale only six weeks before the date of Miss Middleton’s upcoming marriage to Prince William.

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KATE Middleton was hounded out of a top public school by bullies, according to former classmates.

They said Kate, 29, was picked on at £28,875-a-year Downe House girls’ school in Berks for being “perfect”.

She and Prince William have chosen Beatbullying as one of the 26 charities they want wedding guests to donate to instead of giving presents. Former pal Jessica Hay claimed the 13-year-old future princess was singled out for being a “nonentity”.

Jessica said: “She hated it, absolutely hated it. The girls were horrible. They used to put faeces in her bed. She was picked on because she was perfect.”

Kate was pulled out of Downe House and sent as a £29,310-a-year boarder to Marlborough College, Wilts, instead.

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Marlborough old girl Gemma Williamson recalled: “She was very thin – and she had a confidence problem.”

But Kate is said to have eventually blossomed at Marlborough.

Sean Smith, who spoke to Kate’s friends for a book, said of her time at Downe House: “Poor Kate was lonely, homesick and frequently in tears. She was the outsider, – probably too nice for her own good.”

Former Downe House head, Susan Cameron, said Kate had been a daygirl and added: “If Kate had been badly bullied I don’t think she would be the girl she is. But she was not happy.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/04/04/kate-middleton-s-bullying-nightmare-at-public-school-115875-23036201/