"A family based in North London seeks an exceptional and skilled tutor to guide their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might naturally miss the phrase "initial stages" as just an expression.
However, it might be the most important part of this unusual job advert, as it attempts to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of submissions have already been sent in since the anonymous family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has gained attention in the news, with several asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, stated that notwithstanding initial doubt, he found the plan "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the atypical aspect of their request, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he answered. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to him they hoped to prevent this pattern to repeat itself with their infant.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the development at the outset here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will adopt the English characteristics they aim to instil.
The consultant noted the tutor needed to be an individual who attended "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told the expert the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
More than that though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to achievement and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he adds.
However, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", might the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he stated.
Impractical
A number of in the education sector who have similar reservations.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who provides personal educators, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He noted that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and living dual heritages. He continued to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can function as a representation of UK identity, a person who can in some way impart the attributes of a English gentleman to a one-year-old child, appears optimistic and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a typically UK tutor from early childhood will does not instantly produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, English culture is something Adam hopes can be taught – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
