There are two students – a girl, aged 13 and currently in grade 6, and her brother, who is 9, and currently in grade 3. They are polite, well-behaved children from a kind, caring and sensible family. Both children currently attend an excellent school in Singapore which follows the IB curriculum. Alongside a rigorous and very successful academic program, the school has a very strong focus on community service, social justice and sustainability – it passionately believes the importance of education is a force for good, and offers its students a range of activities in which they can positively engage with their community.

The girl is the perfect student – she is mature for her age and considered in her approach. She has excelled academically, and shows a particular aptitude for and enjoyment of the sciences, particularly biochemistry. She enjoys her studies enormously, and will be very easy to engage with – her teachers need only present a topic in an interesting light and she will be hooked. Although she is performing very well at school in general, there are noticeable gaps in her accuracy where spelling and grammar are concerned, and these should be addressed by her Tutors.

The boy is very different to his older sister. While he is also academically very capable, he is also more introspective, reserved, sensitive and occasionally stubborn. He loves learning about and interacting with animals. His emotional intelligence needs a little work, and he admits that he needs a lot of cajoling and encouragement before he will perform tasks or academic exercises that he is not particularly keen on. His favourite teachers are those who are kind, gentle, quiet and easy-going. He is not fond of teachers who are rude or abrupt.

This role calls for a broadly able, calm and well-qualified educator who specialises in the humanities and arts, and who can also deliver a broad range of additional subjects such as languages or music. The Tutor will need to be comfortable working at the standards expected by the best London private schools, and have proven experience in either the IB or British private school curricula – preferably both. This Tutor will be one of two education professionals who can together provide a full home-school curriculum for both students – the other educator will focus on the sciences, maths and technological subjects. A certain amount of overlap between the Tutors is to be expected, but between them, they must be able to teach Spanish and Mandarin.

The family plan to start travelling in September, initially following the Silk Route through Asia before exploring areas of Africa and Europe. They aim to combine periods of intense travel (usually about two weeks at a time) with more static periods where the family will stay in one location for a couple of months. Both Tutors will need to be very comfortable with this level of travel, and should be aware that the standard of their accommodation will vary as they move, and although it may be basic at times, it will always be clean, safe and functional. The Tutor must also be flexible in the sense that they can calmly overcome or work round any obstacles such as unreliable technology. The Tutors should incorporate as much of their surroundings as possible into the lessons of the day, taking advantage of their location to bring alive a history, geology or even mathematics lesson as appropriate, and inspiring and enthusing their students with the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

Both Tutors must be highly organised, excellent record keepers, and able to build solid working relationships with one another as well as with the family. The family will settle in or near London at the end of the travels, so it is imperative that the Tutors are able to teach a curriculum and to a standard that prepares the children for competitive entry to a good day school near the parent’s home and ensures that when they start their new school they are able to thrive. The Tutor’s records should therefore provide evidence of the work covered and to what level, should subsequent school applications require additional assurance that standards have been maintained.

The parents are impressed with the ethos of their children’s current school, and are keen to continue emphasising the importance of service to others as they travel. This means that the Tutors should seek opportunities for volunteering in as many locations as possible, and where possible, use these opportunities as the basis of their lesson planning. Litter picking on beaches, for example, would provide a good platform to study ocean currents and the environmental impact of litter, or perhaps it could form the basis of a mathematics lesson by categorising the litter and subsequently presenting the data and trends. The children could make a shirt from scratch – sourcing raw materials such as cotton, wool, silk etc, spinning yarn, weaving or knitting fabric, dyeing and fixing the colours, and then sewing the pieces together – which would offer tremendous potential for learning across several subjects. In addition to the obvious educational content, it will be important for the Tutors to help the children engage in sports and other outdoor activities such as hiking or trekking. It is also vital that the children remain socially engaged while travelling.

In addition, the parents are also keen that the Tutors teach their lessons through practical applications as much as possible so that the children explore subjects rather than be spoon-fed answers. The Tutors should be able to direct the children’s questions in a way that they are able to arrive at the answers themselves, applying context to the learning experience where necessary, or to devise experiments or investigations to allow the children to find their way to the answers. Journaling their experiences along the way will also feature heavily in this assignment so that the children have a permanent record on which they can look back in later years.

The successful candidate will be able to offer more than the minimum requirements of this position, must have been raised in a socially appropriate background and speak English with Received Pronunciation as a mother tongue. He or she will not only be an excellent educator, but also a good role model: educated and polished, with excellent manners and personal values. The Tutor will also be partly responsible for the children’s character education, teaching manners alongside virtues such as gratitude, community mindedness, resilience and respect for others. Although not mandatory, it would be a bonus to find Tutors who have musical ability, or those who can bring extracurricular activities or skills which can be shared and enjoyed by the whole family.

The Tutor is expected to work with both children up to 40 hours a week with preparation time in addition.

The Tutor is entitled to two consecutive days off per week, but should not expect these to occur at weekends or necessarily to be regular 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 understand this is not always possible. Untaken weekend days that have accrued will also be compensated by a pro-rated payment in lieu.

The Tutor will be entitled to a minimum of 9 weeks paid vacation per annum at times convenient to the Client.

The Client will provide accommodation in all locations and will cover all bills on this accommodation, except for the Tutor’s personal phone bills. The Client will cover all travel expenses associated with this role, as well as meals and food during periods of travel.

Where appropriate, the Tutors will be provided with a car for personal use, but they should be aware that they may have to share access to a vehicle. The Tutors should be aware of the constraints in this regard and adaptable to the variations as they occur from location to location.

The Tutor must be fit and healthy, a non-smoker.

The Tutor must ensure that he or she has the requisite travel and health insurance, has received the required vaccinations, and has the necessary visas.

At the time of writing this Specification, while plans are still in evolution, it is anticipated that the Tutors will not accompany the family on all periods of travel. Any time spent away from the family will either be counted as time for prep or be set against vacation allowance.