Private schools have been left stunned after being banned from hosting this year’s anti-bullying campaign organised by an official Princess Diana charity, after the Government slashed its funding.
The Diana Award charity has told private schools that it will no longer allow them to take part in events or host them because of ‘newly defined funding priorities’.
Ironically, the charity is supported by Princes William and Harry, who went to Wetherby private school, in London, and Eton in Windsor. Diana was also educated in the independent sector – at West Heath Girls’ School in Kent.
Private schools across the country have hosted anti-bullying talks from the charity free of charge for years, where local state schools are invited along.
But Philip Britton, headmaster of Bolton School and chairman-elect of The Heads’ Conference (HMC), revealed that the school had received an ‘absolutely astonishing letter’ last week from The Diana Award.
The charity – whose mission is ‘to ensure that the late Princess Diana’s belief that young people have the power to change the world’ is realised – told him fee-paying schools were no longer allowed to take part.
Bolton School, founded in 1516 – where one in 12 pupils are on free places and one in five receive bursary support – had worked with the charity for more than a decade, hosting events for hundreds of children in the area.
Private schools have been left stunned after being banned from hosting this year’s anti-bullying campaign organised by an official Princess Diana charity, after the Government slashed its funding
The Diana Award charity has told private schools that it will no longer allow them to take part in events or host them because of ‘newly defined funding priorities’
Ironically, the charity is supported by Princes William and Harry, who went to Wetherby private school, in London, and Eton in Windsor. Diana was also educated in the independent sector – at West Heath Girls’ School in Kent. Pictured: Diana taking Prince William and Harry to school in 1989
But instead of receiving confirmation that it could continue its work this year as expected, the school received an email, seen by The Mail on Sunday, which went to all other private schools working with the charity.
It stated: ‘As we approach the 2025-2026 academic year, the Anti-Bullying Ambassador Programme is evolving to better align with newly defined funding priorities. As a result, we regret to share that fee-paying schools will no longer be able to take part as hosts or participants.’
Mr Britton told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Bullying is not about privilege. They are all young people and The Diana Award should engage them all.’
When he challenged the decision, even offering to bar his own pupils from the events but still allow free use of the school’s facilities, he was told it was still not welcome.
‘We provide our facilities completely free of charge to host the anti-bullying events
for The Diana Award, inviting local state schools,’ he explained.
‘At the last event we held, we hosted 140 primary- and secondary-school pupils over two days. Twenty of our own pupils attended each day.’
Last night a spokesman for The Diana Award said that the Department for Education had previously sponsored its anti-bullying programme but ‘it ended with the last government’ and it was now relying on new funding.
The spokesman denied the new backers had told the charity not to work with private schools.
A source close to the charity said its grant was axed last year under the Tories and that ‘regrettably’ it had not been reinstated by the Labour administration.
However, Mr Britton said the decision meant that local schools would now miss out. He added: ‘I am concerned The Diana Award is not working with independent schools because of perceptions of the type of pupil in them. This is simply driven by lazy and careless stereotyping of our sector.
‘Independent schools should be seen as an important solution to the difficulties of education in our nation, and we are increasingly seen as the problem.’
