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The company behind the advert says what looks like “luxury or oddity” is actually “intentional investment in early education”
“A family based in north London seeks an extraordinary and experienced tutor to support their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman.”
When reading this advert, you would be forgiven for skimming over the words “first-steps”, as a turn of phrase.
But, it could be the most significant part of this unique job advert, as it seeks to find a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the anonymous family published their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be “someone very special”.
Over the last few weeks, the advert has gained attention across the media, with many questioning why?
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, said despite initial scepticism, he found the idea “far sighted”, and “progressive”.
When he met the family, he said they appreciated the unusual nature of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they “didn’t want to wait any longer” to get a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that stage “cultural bias had already set in”.
But what does the family mean by “cultural bias”?
It’s “everything”, Adam replied. “The way you eat, the way you speak”.
He said the older sibling had picked “really subtle, non-verbal cues” from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told Adam they did not want history to repeat itself with their new baby.
The plan: To bring in a British tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
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Tutors International say the advert has started a broader conversation about how families view education, privilege and the role of home and culture in learning
“A lot of the learning at the beginning here is kind of osmotic,” said Adam.
It’s via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they wish to instil.
Adam said the tutor had to be somebody who went to “the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to”.
“The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they’ll be doing things they don’t even know they’re doing, just naturally,” he said.
‘Cost not relevant’
The family told Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in horse riding, skiing, the arts and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of classes so the child would be “pony-riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are around three years old”.
In the family’s minds, helping their son become a “British gentleman” will lead to success and open doors.
“For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it’s definitely a class statement,” he adds.
But, despite all this tutelage in “Britishness”, could the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the international family he lives with anyway?
“Yes”, said Adam. “The family know this may not work, but they’ve just taken the view of, ‘let’s give it a go and let’s go as early as we can’, because the cost of it is not relevant,” he said.
‘Idealistic and unrealistic’
There are some in the tutoring industry who share those concerns.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who also offer private tutors, wrote in a blog that “the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered.”
Peter wrote that he had moved from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been raised knowing and living both cultures. He went on to study at Cambridge University.
Peter Cui
Peter Cui was the first person born in mainland China to be elected to the position of Treasurer of the Cambridge Union Society
“The idea that one individual can serve as a living vessel of Britishness, someone who can somehow transplant the qualities of a British gentleman onto a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unrealistic,” he wrote.
“In my experience, having a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will not automatically produce the outcome they desire.
“I never had such a figure, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live many of the experiences they aspire for their son.”
He added: “The truth is, cultural identity cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within.”
Buying Britishness
Of course, Britishness is something Adam hopes can be taught – and sold.
“I think the fact that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing and taking advantage of at the same time,” he said.
“I don’t think that, as British people, we should be embarrassed by this,” Adam said.
“I think we should be proud of it.
Adam Caller
Adam Caller says there is a high value given to an English education…”an English accent implies that you’re well-read, that you’re well-educated, even if you’re not”
The market for buying Britishness isn’t just helping Adam’s tutoring business, it’s given rise to businesses such as Laura Windsor’s Etiquette Academy.
Laura, like other “etiquette experts”, can teach people – for a fee – how to take afternoon tea, dress and hold a conversation, “like a British person”.
“Society has become so diluted and unrestrained, people now want to go back to the way it was,” she said.
The demand for etiquette training is mainly from international clients who wish to be able to interact at business meetings and functions, she said.
But she also teaches groups of children too. Why?
“Because being a polite gentleman or gentlewoman is all about first impressions,” she said.
“Being polite means you respect other people, you make them feel comfortable and important. When you make people feel important, you’re liked, and that opens doors to incredible opportunities.”
Laura Windsor
Laura Windsor (centre) said the ‘restrained’ British culture is something international people want to learn
She said she teaches people how it’s “all in the details”: “It’s about opening doors, and saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and thinking about the other person.”
Laura’s students are never usually as young as one, but starting that young is something the etiquette expert says can have benefits.
“Starting at one, they will grow up being a gentleman, and therefore it’s not a question of ‘tweaking’, it’s who they are.
“Whereas nowadays, people need to be tweaked a little bit, to be a little bit more aware of what they do,” she said.
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One parent told the BBC that a high-end tutor at home was almost comparable to private school fees for multiple children
‘British straight-jacket’
Raising children to be classically British – with all the etiquette trimmings – is not the priority for parent Daniel (not his real name).
“Far from leaning into English, British values, we wanted the total opposite. We are trying to go away from the UK system and the straight-jacket of that,” he said.
Daniel is currently employing one of Adam’s super-tutors to work with his three children around their school hours.
Next year the tutor will accompany the whole family as they move abroad for work.
For Daniel and his wife, it’s about teaching emotional intelligence, and preparing their children for a world influenced by Artificial Intelligence. Neither believes this is possible without an external tutor.
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Is the British school system ready for the forthcoming changes that artificial intelligence will bring?
The current British school system “isn’t fit for purpose”, he said, adding that one private school in London, Latymer Upper School, has now dropped using most of the GCSE examination system and instead uses its own in-house system which involves more group work activities and project-based learning.
“If GCSE’s aren’t going to be recognised everywhere – and are not the gold standard – maybe we would be better leaning into a tutor where we get so much more out of it,” said Daniel.
“Right here, right now, in the UK school system, if I look at the quality of teacher my kids would get at a private school versus these tutors, it’s an absolute joke – there is a real discrepancy,” he said.
He added that he recognised hiring a high-end tutor was for “those in a lucky financial situation”, but explained that since private school fees increased following the addition of VAT in January, he felt the cost of the private tutor had become comparable for three children.
“My kids could have one-twentieth of a very average person’s attention in school, or they could have one-third of an absolutely exceptional person – it’s an absolute no brainer.”
