He currently receives one to one support from his school, and to date this has been from a native Russian speaker. He also has a tutor at home, and although this tutor lived in a US language environment for many years, this Tutor is more like a big brother. Although well intentioned, this Tutor simply lacks the personal skills and the desire to acquire them that the student needs.

Like his parents, the student is kind and caring. He is very polite and able to converse well with adults despite a language gap. His parents are concerned that they may be spoiling him, and although he currently displays little sense of entitlement or particularly demanding behaviour, it is something that the Tutor should keep an eye on.

It is fair to say that while he enjoys school and gets on well with his class, he is not doing very well. His weakness with English and underdeveloped independent study skills combine to hold him back from keeping up with his class. The school considered holding him down a year, but for social reasons decided to let him move up with his new class. The same concern about whether he should repeat a year will arise at the end of this school year too. The role of the Tutor is therefore to help his progress on all these fronts — it will be insufficient for the Tutor to enable him unless his English improves alongside a transformative change in study habits, focus, self-reliance and stamina.

In school, he has developed various coping mechanisms to help him deal with his language and attention issues. For example, he uses a delaying technique — the teacher asks a question, he raises his hand and only starts to formulate his answer once he is selected. This means that there is an inevitable pause between being selected and providing the correct answer, which has led to the belief in the school that he is “slow”. Whether intentional or not, his school’s perception of slowness means that expectations of his performance are perhaps artificially too low at present. Having said that, until his ability to read and write in English becomes much more fluent and natural, and unless he develops the personal drive to get on with his own work without continuous prompting, he will be unable to keep up with his class.

The Tutor is therefore initially responsible for bridging the gap between what the student can do and what he should be doing. He needs to learn good working habits before the bad ones become entrenched. He has already learned that he can get away with doing little and still receive reward and praise for his efforts. Once this urgent gap is closed, the Tutor will need to try to bring him up to the standards where he can be competitive at Common Entrance for either a year 7 or year 9 entry to London day schools. He is a bright child with excellent sequencing skills, memory, and pattern matching, and there is no reason why he should not perform very well at school. The Tutor should not be afraid to push his or her charge to achieve his potential. He or she should create a productive atmosphere, rich with discourse and dialogue that nurtures the development of an inquiring and curious young mind, and which can also encompass the interests of the family as a whole.

Although the plan to move to London is a few years away and the timing is by no means confirmed, it is essential to expose the student to work and topics that go above and beyond what is necessary for entry to the best of London’s private schools. Indeed, an understanding of the private school entry process and standards will be essential.

The Tutor should be a well-educated individual with a wide range of interests and broad subject knowledge. Although the focus of this role is clearly the student’s development, the Tutor is likely to have interaction with both of the parents, and it is important that the Tutor can bring intelligent and insightful conversation on an adult level to the family. The father in particular has an interest in all things Euro-centric, with a specific fondness for European history, geography and French literature. It would be helpful if the Tutor shared his interest in these topics and could help to instill this outward looking world-view in the student. His mother would also like to improve her English and some of the Tutor’s time will be spent formally in this capacity.

Accordingly, the Tutor should be eloquent, able to explain concepts simply and able to inspire the student with his or her enthusiasm for any given subject. He or she should have a wide knowledge base and a range of extra curricular skills and interests that can be shared with the family. The Tutor should be a natural communicator with a kind and caring disposition, and a firm-but-fair approach to their work. The student likes soccer, tennis and shooting, and it would be helpful if the Tutor shared some or all of these sporting interests.

As the role is based in Moscow, a grasp of Russian would be useful for the Tutor, simply so they can function effectively and independently in the city. This is not essential, but the successful candidate will be expected to want to take the opportunity of being based in Moscow to learn some Russian. The role itself is in English, although additional languages would also be looked on favourably — especially French and Latin.

The opportunities for after-school support are endless, and the Tutor should be creative enough to take advantage of this freedom by adopting a range of activities to aid learning. Traditional schooling should be mixed with more practical, hands on lessons, such as from the Science or IT curricula. Where possible they should take advantage of local environments — Moscow has plenty of art galleries, museums and theatres from which to choose.

The Tutor should expect an average of two consecutive days off per week. These will usually be Friday and Saturday. Sunday afternoons will be a good time to help ensure that the student is prepared for Monday at school.

The Tutor is entitled to a minimum of nine weeks paid vacation per annum as per the Terms. These will be taken at times suitable to the Client, and will likely follow the same pattern as the school holidays, with breaks at Christmas, New Year, Easter and the summer. The Tutor is expected to work with the student on any public holidays Monday-Thursday that are not part of the arranged vacation periods.

The Client will provide a fully furnished apartment with Internet. The family are in the process of moving home and their new apartment will be closer to the school. It is planned that the Tutor’s apartment will be located between the school and the family so that it is convenient for the Tutor. All bills on this apartment, expect for the Tutor’s personal phone bills, will be paid for by the Client.

The Tutor should be a non-smoker, lead a physically active lifestyle, and be healthy and fit. He or she should be engaging, have a good sense of humour and a sunny disposition, yet be a serious educator who understands their responsibility in this important role.

The Tutor will be provided with a car for his or her personal use. When taking the student anywhere, the family’s driver will be assigned.