Isle of Man (IOM-0718)

There are three children. The oldest currently attends the local primary school. She has two younger siblings who also currently attend the local school, but the intention is to remove them from their classes and provide full time home education instead. The oldest has expressed a preference for staying at the local school. The plan is for her to do this on a flexible basis, likely attending approximately six hours of home schooling per week during the week and on some Saturdays. The Tutor must be flexible regarding fitting her into the weekly timetable.

The oldest is a shy and reserved girl. She is very bright, but in a quiet, bookish way. She is academically able and quick to pick up new concepts. She is a kind, thoughtful and caring older sister. In contrast, the middle child is by far the most gregarious and outgoing of the three. Like the older sister, the middle child is academically able and switched on, and like her, enjoys reading and writing. This child is perhaps a little more mischievous than her older sister, but always in a good-natured, rambunctious way and completely without malice. The youngest of the siblings takes after the oldest sister in shyness. Unlike the other children, the youngest is not a particularly strong or comfortable reader, and does not enjoy literacy in the same way that the others do. There is a suggestion that some kind of learning difference may be there, but at this time there is no reason for formal testing. Working with a private Tutor who uses some of the remediation teaching styles that might be recommended by a formal report will help reveal what works best, and that’s the most important outcome whether there is a report or not. In other areas, the youngest is very quick on the uptake, curious and engaged in the world. The children have evident senses of humour, and working with them will be a pleasure for the right Tutor.

The girls come from a well-rounded, loving and supportive family. Their parents are warm, friendly individuals who are well-educated themselves and value education in others. The family adore animals – they have five cats and aspire to own a hamster in their designated schoolroom.

All of the girls regularly participate in sporting activities. They all play netball, go horse riding and swim regularly and have competed in duathlon and triathlon events. The oldest is in the Isle of Man swimming squad. The girls all have singing lessons, and the oldest two play the piano.

The Tutor will have the freedom to teach the younger two children the full curriculum in their own way, taking full advantage of the surroundings and using local resources to the maximum benefit. The younger two will be taught together, with full time tutoring replacing formal school, so the Tutor must be able to differentiate their lessons and challenge both girls equally. With a busy teaching day, there should be no need to set homework, since there should be enough time during lessons to ensure mastery of each subject.

The oldest girl will be taught separately. Her classes will focus on consolidating work covered in her local school, ensuring she is up to the standard of children in top flight London prep schools, and preparing her for entrance exams to good boarding schools for her senior education. The Tutor must be well versed in the relevant exam prep as well as the application processes and deadlines of potential boarding schools on the mainland, and will have to start working on this very quickly, since she will be fast approaching the time for 11+ exams. While none of the children have a set academic pathway, the Tutor should ensure that all doors are kept open to them at this stage.

The Tutor will be responsible for teaching the full range of typical subjects plus French. With the freedom afforded by private tuition, it is envisaged that the Tutor will also have the time to introduce other subjects to the core curriculum. Should the Tutor have a passion for engineering, photography, art history or any such subject, she or he would be encouraged to share this with all three students. Private tutoring opens all sorts of doors to exciting and educational adventures, and it is expected that much of the children’s tutoring will be of the hands-on exploration variety. However, there are serious educational values to this assignment, and formal classroom learning is to be expected for the introduction of new topics, or while the children are completing any homework or studying for exams.

The children's parents are aware of the fact that private tutoring should make learning a fun and exciting journey for all concerned. However, they value their family time very highly and do not want to find themselves in a position that the Tutor experiences all of the most fun activities while leaving the parents with the more mundane tasks of child-rearing. This is not to say that the Tutor cannot take the children to any visiting exhibitions, shows or galleries, but they should first check with the parents in case they had also planned their own visit. On these occasions, the Tutor may be asked to provide the parents with some teaching materials that they can use as they tour an art gallery or museum. On other occasions, the Tutor may be asked to join the family on their weekend excursions, in which case the Tutor should prepare suitable materials and research the exhibition to ensure they can bring something extra to the experience for the parents too.

Fostering an entrepreneurial spirit appeals to both parents, so the children should be encouraged to develop any business ideas that they may have. This will provide an excellent platform for them to learn about the connections and relationships formed while doing business, as well as giving them a solid, practical understanding of the business world from an early age.

Given that this role is based on the Isle of Man, the Tutor should be someone who is comfortable living in a small, relatively isolated community. The family live in a quiet, gentle, almost village-like environment where the local people are warm, welcoming and sociable. The landscape is stunning. The role will suit a Tutor who thrives without the anonymity, culture and nightlife of a large city. Someone who has a creative interest, perhaps a writer or an artist, and who has the emotional time and intelligence to embrace this kind of lifestyle between their hours teaching will be most comfortable in this position.

This appointment is initially until August 2019, with an option for annual renewals, since the children are likely to be home-schooled at least until their secondary education begins. Should the tutoring be successful, this role could feasibly continue until the end of formal schooling. Accordingly, the Tutor must design and deliver a course that solidifies the extent of their schooling to date and enables them to progress at least as quickly as the best schools, but without over-pressuring the students or teaching in an overbearing manner.

The appointed candidate will be highly educated, intelligent, well travelled, responsible, practical, and down-to-earth, with a sense of fun and a wide range of personal interests they can bring to the role. The Tutor needs to be physically fit and active. They must like animals. The ideal Tutor will be able to fit well into family life: ideal qualities include being unobtrusive, respectful of the family’s time together, and able to spot opportunities to make everyone’s life easier. For example, the Tutor might offer to pick up milk or post letters if they are heading into town.

The Tutor should be eloquent, able to explain concepts simply, and able to inspire with his or her enthusiasm for any given subject. She or he should be a natural communicator with a kind and caring disposition, and a firm-but-fair approach to work. The Tutor should have an enquiring mind and a good sense of humour, and should develop an educationally rich program of study, flexible enough in the lesson plans to allow tangential lines of enquiry to be followed while structured enough to ensure that lessons are not consistently hijacked.

It will be essential for the Tutor to maintain meticulous, up-to-date records of achievement for all the children and across all their subjects. They must be highly organised, self-sufficient and creative, with a broad knowledge base and the ability to ignite a passion for learning in their students. The Tutor should be very comfortable using technology in their lessons and should develop a technologically rich environment for the girls. They should be introduced to the basics of coding, should use drones when appropriate, should explore engineering challenges and should undertake exciting science experiments both inside and outside the school room. The Tutor should have the intellectual scope to help to develop the students into well-rounded, intellectually curious world citizens.

The Tutor will be available to the family for up to an average of 40 hours a week. It is likely that this contact time will take place entirely during the working week, although the Tutor may be required to work during an occasional weekend. Preparation time is not part of the contact hours mentioned. A timetable must be established with reference to the any extracurricular activities and travel arrangements and be flexible enough to accommodate unexpected changes.

The Tutor is entitled to two consecutive days off per week, but should not expect these to occur solely at weekends or always to be regular in their timing. As far as possible, the Client will try to give the Tutor at least two weeks’ notice of when their ‘weekend’ break will be, but the Tutor must understand this is not always possible. The standard minimum 9 weeks (45 working days) of paid vacation allowance applies to this contract (pro-rated) with these breaks being taken at times convenient to the Client.

Any untaken vacation allowance or untaken weekend days that have accrued will be compensated by payment in lieu at a pro-rated day rate.

The Tutor will be provided with furnished accommodation within the grounds of the family house. This accommodation will double up as the school-room. This may mean that for parts of the day, the Tutor will be required to share bathroom facilities with the girls. The accommodation is not suitable for a couple, but for the right candidate there may be alternatives in the nearby town at the Tutor's expense. The role does not suit a tutor who has her or his own family.

The on-site accommodation has its own private entrance and space to accommodate the occasional friend or family member of the Tutor for short visits. All utilities and the Internet bills for this apartment will be arranged and paid for by the Client. The Client is not responsible for the Tutor’s personal phone bills.

A car will be made available to the Tutor for local errands on the Isle of Man. There may be occasional travel to the family’s home in Austria, in which case the Tutor’s flights, accommodation, and personal local transport costs will be covered by the Client.

The successful candidate will be able to offer more than the minimum requirements of this position, and must have been raised in a socially appropriate background. 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 should be fit and healthy, a non-smoker. The Tutor will not be expected to teach PE, but it would be expected that they would be able to join in with some aspects of the girls sports training, for example taking them running.