Sadam was an insubordinate child and we had great difficulties with him when he was young; he was bad-tempered, obstreperous and unwilling to bow to authority. He did badly at school, although his teachers suspected that he might be quite bright. 

During COVID he was taught on Zoom; his attitude towards learning – or indeed towards any kind of authority – remained the same. After COVID we tried giving him private tuition after school three times a week; he had no respect for the tutor and the tutor said that he was unable to control Adam. We were at our wits end. 

And then we met a couple who had hired a live-in residential tutor from Tutors from England, whose tutor had helped their son enormously, and we decided to give that a try, although we did not have very high expectations, but we didn’t know what else to do. 

Geoffrey arrived and we liked him immediately; he was charming, cultivated, fun and seemed intelligent. Even Sadam liked him. 

We were immediately impressed by Geoffrey’s attitude to Sadam; he made no effort to restrain or control him; he simply befriended him – he took him on long walks and they talked non-stop; he took him skateboarding – one of Sadam’s passions – and generally had fun with him to such an extent that Sadam just adored him. 

And then, over a few months, Geoffrey came to change Sadam’s character and instil in him a sense of civility and responsibility. Sadam was a changed boy – he worked conscientiously and learned a lot from Geoffrey’s tuition, so much so that after Geoffrey had been living with us for nine months, Sadam was able to go back to school and he flourished there. 

It turned out that his teachers had been right; Sadam is an intelligent boy – for some reason he had gone astray, probably because my wife and I had not been strict enough with him when he was young. Geoffrey changed Sadam, very much for the better, and he could not possibly have done so had he not lived in the family full-time and been integrated into the family for nine months. We are so grateful to Tutors from England; Adam’s headmaster says that Adam is a completely changed boy. EN