Over the last year Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge has been commended for "stepping up" her role as a working royal. She has been extremely present in public life and has taken on more Royal Family duties amid the Queen's health concerns. Kate has also found her passion, tackling the big challenges facing young families today.

       For nearly a decade, she has focused her attention on how early childhood shapes our future/

       Last year, she launched the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.

       The Daily Mail's royal editor Rebecca English reported on Kate’s "royal calling."

       She stated: "It’s taken her a while to find her voice, that’s been quite deliberate on her behalf because she didn’t want to go in all guns blazing.

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       "She wanted to learn about her craft, she wanted to become more confident with public speaking and this convening power that she has been given.

       "This is not a flash in a pan; this is her future and what she will continue doing as Princess of Wales and, eventually, when she becomes Queen."

       In June, Kate took her passion a step further and announced The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, a hub within the Cambridges’ charitable vehicle that will help push for increased awareness of and new research into the impact of the early years.

       In an official statement, Kate said: "Our first five years lay important foundations for our future selves.

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       "This period is when we first learn to manage our emotions and impulses, to care and to empathize, and thus ultimately to establish healthy relationships with ourselves and others.

       "It is a time when our experience of the world around us, and the way that moulds our development, can have a lifelong impact on our future mental and physical wellbeing.

       Indeed, what shapes our childhood shapes the adults and the parents we become."

       Later in the year, the Duchess voiced her support for a study into the early years' development of children, ahead of a visit to University College London to meet the academics behind it.

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       Kate visited the University's Centre for Longitudinal Studies on Tuesday to meet the academics who launched the "landmark" study, The Children of the 2020s.