The family has four children, boys aged 12, 10, and 6, and a girl aged 6. They are well-rounded, enthusiastic and engaging children. The two older boys have both recently been found to have (differing presentations of) dyslexia and dysgraphia. The boys are both enrolled at a school that selects only the brightest students; entrants are normally well above average, and often ‘gifted’. The boys’ natural intellectual ability means that they have already developed some management strategies, but it is unlikely that these will be sufficient to sustain the children as they get older. Rather than wait for their children to encounter problems at school and then try to address them, their parents have taken the farsighted step of looking for a Tutor who will be able to work with the boys for the long term to ensure that they never reach the stage where their learning differences are detrimental to their academic performance and self-confidence.

The oldest boy is an engaging and communicative young man who clearly has the ambition and capability to do very well at school. He enjoys many sports, especially basketball, which he plays for the school, and has a wide range of interests. He also has a well-developed sense of humor and will be a pleasure for an able and broad-minded teacher to work with every day. His dyslexia predominantly affects his spelling and reading — spelling can be phonetic (eg. ‘nollage’ for ‘knowledge’) and inaccuracies with reading can lead to misunderstanding and proof-reading challenges. Scan-reading to find information quickly from text is also an area that will need some attention. His short-term working memory, normally a problem for dyslexics, isn’t a serious concern, and nor is his ability to recount sequences of events, but he can be disorganized and will need help developing self-check techniques to minimize the effects of this. He works best in a distraction-free environment. His dysgraphia means that he is most comfortable working from a keyboard, but his control of word-processing software could be significantly improved.

The next boy is also a gregarious and bright young man who is pleasure to work with. He loves football (soccer) and plays on his school team as often as time allows. Like his older brother, he wants to do well academically, but tends to rush and learn to better articulate his ideas. His dysgraphia slows his writing to the extent that he sometimes forgets what he was writing and he needs to practice letter formation, size and proportion, alignment, and line quality. At the moment his writing is slow enough to affect his short-term memory and he needs to remind himself what he intended to write, and the size and proportion deficit in cursive means that ‘e’ looks like ‘l’ and lower case ‘p’ looks like ‘r’. This certainly doesn’t help him to learn the spellings of words. In Math, he has few problems with computation, but where the problem requires extracting data from text (word problems) he is less comfortable.

Although the youngest boy is currently too young to be formally assessed, there are early signs that he too has some of the same learning differences as his older brothers, and the early recognition of this means that he can start working on long term management strategies that much earlier than his brothers.

The overarching role of the Tutor is to take a leading responsibility for the management of remediation for the children. This will involve the implementation of current strategies that are being used, such as phonic awareness, and the continuous search and trial of other strategies that the boys’ parents, supporting professionals such as Educational Psychologists, the Tutor, and of course Tutors International, might become aware of. As the central figure in the implementation of such strategies as the Tutor finds works best, the Tutor will be pivotal in ensuring maximum flexibility, continuity and success for the children as their academic lives unfurl.

Despite the apparently strong learning differences element to this role, it is not suitable someone who specializes in special educational needs. Instead, the ideal candidate will be the kind of teacher who is able to support the children’s academic needs all the way through high school, and across all subjects, someone able to illuminate the material and ensure it remains accessible for the children. A good all-round Tutor could easily learn the remediation strategies being implemented, whereas an ability to teach, say, Math, cannot usually be learned by a specialist remedial teacher. For example, a student might be encouraged to explore calligraphy as part of an art project, and this would provide a strong backdrop in which to practice with different handwriting styles and pens, all aimed at increasing his ability and confidence with cursive writing.

Writing is an area that affects both boys. Neither boy appears to have been taught good strategies for writing and forming letters. Both boys’ handwriting will need particular focus early on, to improve clarity and speed. It could be that the Davis Spelling Mastery techniques will be helpful in addressing spelling and handwriting problems, especially with the relative size of parts of the letters. The Tutor will need to remain open-minded about trying strategies, adjusting them as the job proceeds, and changing them where necessary.

This is clearly a significant role for a Tutor with a great deal of responsibility. Not only do the children need supporting with their homework and with the integration of remedial techniques that will allow them to thrive as their studies demand more of them, but also requires the Tutor to have central role in relation to advising and managing the overall educational development of the children in relation to their individual learning styles.

The ideal candidate will be an experienced teacher, someone who has a balanced worldview, someone with a liberal and open-minded outlook, free from any agenda. The Tutor will be a non-smoker, enjoy a variety of sports and lead a healthy lifestyle. He or she should be firm without being strict, and able inject humor and light heartedness into all that they do. He or she should be fluent in either French or Spanish (or both).

The Tutor should expect to be available to work with the boys from 2pm-10pm, Monday-Thursday, and from 8am-2pm on Sundays. Preparation should be in addition to these times.

The Tutor will be entitled to a minimum 9 weeks (45 working days) paid vacation per annum, at times convenient to the Client. These will generally follow the normal school vacations.

If the Tutor is asked to accompany the Client on any travel, the Client will be responsible for all the Tutor’s expenses and accommodation arrangements.

If the Tutor’s spouse or partner is also invited then the Tutor will normally be expected to cover these additional costs.

A well-appointed apartment is provided for the Tutor, on the ground of the family’s home. This accommodation is quiet and private, and is suitable for a couple.

The family are planning to set aside their library as a study room for the Tutor and students. It is likely that this room will need some adjustments to make it suitable for this purpose and the Tutor will be involved in these decisions.

It would be advantageous for the Tutor to be open to the possibility that this could be a long-term assignment, lasting several years. It is also possible that at least one of those years might be spent in France, where the family also have a home.