The student is the 6-year-old son of a Texan family, and will be in third grade in September 2011. Until now he has been home schooled and this has resulted in a curious fascination for the world combined with a love of learning. The boy is polite, gregarious, and energetic, and enjoys extending his understanding of the world around him at every opportunity. His IQ at age three years three months was 135, but these numbers do not begin to express the potential of the boy.

His current passion is palaeontology. The extent of his knowledge of dinosaurs, their habitats and behaviours, geological periods, and development of the continents is impressive. Equally, his cognitive ability in math is remarkable for his age. He was able to read when just two, learned chess at three, and started Spanish and Mandarin at three and a half.

His parents are undecided about plans for him for September. They are considering whether to enroll their son locally, into a school with strong family ties that delivers a first rate education. The school has a tradition of holding new students down a grade to allow them to gain in maturity. The student's parents feel that holding a boy with their son’s ability back at this stage may stifle his natural interests and abilities. This dilemma has not yet been resolved, and it is therefore not known whether the family will continue to home school until their son is eleven, or enroll him in the school with an after-school Tutor who would maintain their son’s intellectual development through extra-curricular activities and subjects of study that the school does not offer. Whatever the decision, it is likely to remain a fluid situation and the family certainly plan to continue to travel and to make use of their yacht for extended periods during the school year.

This position requires a Tutor with a significant range of subject skills and teaching ability, combined with excellent organisation and flexibility. It is possible that the role will involve a combination of after-school support and enhancement, periods of home schooling in San Antonio or while travelling, or aboard a yacht.

The Tutor will need to be bilingual English-Spanish, and preferably trilingual English-Spanish-French. He or she will also need to be highly literate, numerate and computer literate. The Tutor should be organised, self-reliant and independent, able to foresee circumstances that might affect their work and resolve these impediments in good time. This role requires a Tutor who is highly flexible and able to adapt their plans to changes at short notice without becoming pettish. It is likely that the ideal candidate will have a background in the Sciences and shares many of the boy’s interests, such as chess and Mandarin, or can offer another language or a musical instrument. The successful candidate will be a creative and fun educator who can combine all these qualities into a rich learning environment in which the student's special abilities continue to flourish.

During any home school periods of the role, whether in Texas, while travelling, or aboard the yacht, one of the Tutor’s important responsibilities will be to find suitable social opportunities for the student. This may involve maintaining a contact list of families in various locations and arranging play-dates when he is around, finding out about sports or other age-appropriate activities, inviting other children to join the boy for something arranged specially for them, or anything else that the Tutor and the family can think of.

Given the range of situations that this position entails it is impossible to be specific about a typical working day; this will obviously vary enormously with location and travel itineraries. Having said that, the Tutor should expect an average of 35-40 hours contact time with the student per week, with preparation time in addition.

The Tutor will be entitled to two consecutive days off per week, but should not expect these to coincide with weekends or to be consistent in their timing. As far as possible the Client will try to give the Tutor at least a week’s notice of when their ‘weekend’ break will be, but the Tutor will need to be flexible if this is not possible.

The Tutor is entitled to a minimum of 9 weeks paid vacation per annum as per the Terms.

In Texas the Tutor will be provided with self-contained, furnished accommodation with Internet either on the family’s property or nearby. The Client will be responsible for all bills on this accommodation with the exception of the Tutor’s personal phone calls.

On the yacht the Tutor will have his or her own berth. Other periods of travel may include periods in a hotel or other appropriate, safe and clean accommodations. During such periods of travel the Client will be responsible for all the Tutor’s expenses.

There will be a great deal of travel with this position. The Client is responsible for the Tutor’s expenses for any such travel.

The successful candidate will be able to offer more than the minimum requirements of this position and will need to have been raised in socially appropriate background. He or she will not only be an excellent educator but also a good role model, educated, polished, with excellent manners and personal values.

The Tutor will need to be comfortable with life on a yacht. While this is not a small boat it will not suit someone who suffers from seasickness, or who will be uncomfortable being in relatively close confines for perhaps weeks at a time.