Middle-class childrearing is a famously ferocious business. To propel their progeny many parents have a closely guarded weapon - the private tutor.
An hour a day with an absent-minded but well-meaning retired teacher, plodding through conjugations, is no longer enough these days. Aspirational parents now expect results-driven, totally bespoke tutoring for their buck, from inspiring young graduates, conveniently in plentiful supply in the present economic climate.
Celebrities couples such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin are just one example of this new breed of wealthy and demanding parents. Earlier this summer an advert they placed with Tutors International offered free use of a West London flat, free travel, and £60,000 a year, in return for Ancient Greek, Latin, Chess, Sailing, French and Spanish lessons for their children, who are five and seven years old.
Even beyond academia, parents will pay for all kinds of instruction. 'Life Skills' lessons from Quintessentially Education are charged at £110 an hour and involve showing children deportment, time management, and strategies for obtaining work experience. Tailored to any requirement, the agency even hire in ex-Special Service personnel to teach safety awareness.
It is certainly an attractive proposition for many graduates who, though very well-educated, are struggling to support themselves. The work is flexible and the going rate in central London is £40 an hour, often cash in hand, if organised privately. Tutors can, however, make far more than that. Tutors International charge an eye-watering £1,000 a week for part-time tuition for 12-15 hours.
So what is it like to try your hand at private tutoring?
Will Stadlen from Holland Park Tuition:
Our clients are looking for intellectual rigour. One of my colleagues, an Oxford History graduate, spent a fortnight on a super yacht in Ibiza, where he was required to spend the days researching obscure aspects of British and European history just to engage the child in intellectual conversation over dinner. He stayed in a five star hotel and was ferried to and from the harbour by limo every morning. The most outlandish thing we hear on a regular basis is from parents of two-year-olds who ask - “have we left it too late for Cambridge?”
Luke Sullivan from Riviera Tutors:
We mainly go to Monaco, the Cote D’Azur and London, but my friend recently came back from Argentina, where he'd been to Antarctica to see the penguins. When we're there we temporarily join the life of the client. It’s not uncommon for us to spend time on private yachts and jets.
It's high pressure because we often deal with international clients who need a lot done in a short space of time. The children, used to mingling with maids, chefs and bodyguards throughout their lives, are remarkably confident with adults.
The academic demands can be very sophisticated. One client asked us to teach entomology (the study of insects), specialising in dissection. We sent them over an Oxford Biology graduate who was able to indulge their curiosity as part of their science syllabus.
'George', freelancing for several London companies:
I've had wonderful experiences - from helicopter rides and safaris, to travel in private planes. On holiday in India, every morning I taught for a few hours, then I lay on the beach every afternoon, and read on my balcony in a beautiful Portuguese fort before dinner. If you stay in an English country house or castle they usually give you a guest bedroom, so I've had my fair share of four posters. I've had a stunning bedroom on the top floor of a chateau in the South of France for three years running.
Sometimes the parents treat you as an equal. Other times, as a cultural difference with some Russian and South African families, you may well be looked down on by the children, who think you're basically a nanny, and talked down to by the parents, who pigeonhole you in the "people we pay" box. I've learned that with the children of the uber-rich, you have to be careful to show them who's boss. If you're too nice to them to start with, they'll treat you as if you were staff.
Tutors can really be just another accessory for some wealthy families. In South Africa, the other tutor and I were teaching children who just didn't need it - it was very much a status thing. I thought also that we were there to make up for the deficiencies in parental attention. On a trip to France I felt as if I were a symbol of the family's standing. My intellectual position was used by the mother to shore up her own in front of her friends. The children again didn't really need tutoring.
Some of the children are horribly overworked. I had a pupil last year whose mother gave him five hours of tutoring every day during his holiday. He was 12. And it was all to get his marks up from 60 to 65 per cent. The poor thing was a wreck by the end of it.