One principal. One file.
Every family has a single point of contact at the practice. The principal. He is on the call, in the room and on the email. Engagements are not delegated to a junior. They are held by the person whose name is on the door.
About the practice
Elite Education was founded in 2018 in the United Arab Emirates to advise a small number of families on the academic life of their children. The practice has grown only through quiet introduction. It will continue to.
This practice was founded on a simple observation. The families I work with are not short of capacity. They are short of someone who will hold the academic life of a child as carefully as their own people hold every other affair of the household.
That is what we do. We sit beside the principal, the chief of staff or the head of the family office and we take responsibility for one part of the family's life. The part where a child is becoming who they will be.
We do not take many engagements each year. The ones we take, we hold for years. We choose the people who work with us by hand. We replace anyone whose fit is not right. We are quiet about who we work with and we are unflinching about what we promise.
If you have been introduced to us, you already know more than this page can tell you. If you have arrived here on your own, please read on, and if our practice answers a question your family is asking, write.
House principles
Every family has a single point of contact at the practice. The principal. He is on the call, in the room and on the email. Engagements are not delegated to a junior. They are held by the person whose name is on the door.
Tutors and admissions counsel are chosen for the student in front of us. We do not maintain a faculty whose hours we must fill. We assemble a team for each engagement and dissolve it when the work is done.
Files are held under the principal's signature. No case is referenced by name in any of our writing. No detail of any family is ever discussed outside our office. Where a household requires a confidentiality agreement, we sign theirs without comment - but the discretion is in the practice, not the paperwork.
We tell families what we believe, in the language we would use with our own. If a school is the wrong school, we say so. If an outcome is unrealistic on the timeline, we say so. We are paid to give an honest view, not a comfortable one.
Most engagements run for several years. Pre-school readiness through senior school. Senior school through university. We are not a tutoring agency between exams. We are a standing relationship across the long arc of academic life.
Credentials
A short ledger of what the practice is, what it is licensed for and how it is held to account.
Common Enquiries
Elite Education is a private education advisory based in the United Arab Emirates, advising a small number of families each year on tutoring, admissions and ongoing academic counsel. The practice was founded in 2018 and is held in confidence.
The principal is Craig O’Brien. He leads every engagement personally and remains the single point of contact for each family.
The practice is based in the United Arab Emirates and is active across the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong. We travel to the family when the engagement requires it.
We work with single family offices, principals’ chiefs of staff and household directors. We do not take volume work and we do not advertise.
There are three quiet practices held under one roof: tutoring, admissions and family education advisory. Most engagements run for several years — pre-school readiness through senior school, or senior school through university — rather than between exams.
A first conversation is arranged through introduction or a private enquiry. We do not publish a price list. A confidentiality agreement is executed before any discovery work begins.
The practice works across the IB Diploma Programme, A-Level, IGCSE, the SAT and ACT, AP, Common Entrance and senior school pre-tests, and Oxbridge and Ivy League admissions. Tutors are matched to the child and the household, not to a curriculum alone.
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