The return to classes is marking the final days in our Royal Family. First it was Princess Leonor who began the first year of her Political Science degree at Carlos III University in Madrid, after finishing her three-year military training. Last Monday, Infanta Sofía began her classes in Paris in the second year of Political Science and International Relations. And now Queen Letizia is about to have a very special day at her former school.
In her usual role as the person in charge of presiding over the official opening of the school year in different autonomous communities of Spain, this time her destination will be the La Gesta Public School in Oviedo. Queen Letizia will thus return to the place where she studied from 1980 to 1986. In its classrooms she studied seven years of primary education, between second and eighth grade of the old EGB.
Subsequently, she continued her studies at the Alfonso II Institute, while taking ballet lessons three days a week. Because of her father’s work, Jesús Ortiz, the whole family had to move to the town of Rivas-Vaciamadrid. There the young Letizia continued her training at the Ramiro de Maeztu Institute. When it came to choosing a career, she enrolled at the Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid and earned a degree in Information Sciences, majoring in Journalism.
Queen Letizia will attend this event just two days after turning 54, in a week in which she has already had two other commitments on her schedule. The wife of King Felipe inaugurated the course at the National School of Civil Protection in Rivas-Vaciamadrid and presided this Wednesday over a nursing tribute day with the motto ‘Caring for the mind is caring for life’.
Excitement at the sight of Queen Letizia
Local press has crowded around the arrival of Queen Letizia at her former school, which also coincides with the San Mateo festival in the capital of the Principality. The festive events began on September 10 with the opening proclamation delivered by the president of the Princess of Asturias Foundation, Ana Isabel Fernández.
Ficha escolar de la reina Letizia en el colegio La Gesta.
Given that the school’s most illustrious former pupil has not visited since 2008, it is natural that students, teachers, and families are excited. According to La Nueva España, the pupils have prepared a greeting for Queen Letizia on the occasion of her birthday. “We can’t wait for her to come”, the youngsters agree.
In statements to this newspaper, Andrés Flórez, the director of La Gesta, said that from the moment teachers told the pupils that Queen Letizia would visit the school, “they were very excited.” He adds that the younger pupils “were surprised to learn that she had studied here.”
Second inauguration in Oviedo
This is the second time that the opening of the school year has brought Queen Letizia back to Oviedo. The first was in 2018, when she attended the Baudilio Arce Public School, which that year celebrated its 40th anniversary and is named after a renowned Oviedo educator. There she was received by 450 students from Early Childhood and Primary, spread across 18 classes, who share the site with IES Doctor Fleming, which she visited next.
Felipe and Letizia visit La Gesta in 2008.
Letizia’s last visit to La Gesta was in 2008, on the occasion of the school’s 50th anniversary. For an hour and a half, accompanied by King Felipe, she reconnected with Oviedo’s public school, to which she and her two sisters went as children, when it was not yet coeducational as it is today. Ten years later, a group of alumni submitted a request to rename La Gesta as Reina Letizia.
