IB Tutor in Dubai for Maths and Physics, with a PhD in Physics

As an IB tutor I cover two subjects only: IB Mathematics, both Analysis and Approaches (AA) and Applications and Interpretation (AI), and IB Physics, each at Higher and Standard Level. That includes the Internal Assessment in both subjects, HL Paper 3 in Maths, and exam technique on past papers marked against the IB markscheme.

Dubai has many tutoring agencies that cover every subject from a roster of tutors. This is the other model: one person, two subjects, taught every day for more than ten years. It means knowing where each topic of the guide tends to break, which questions the IB repeats with a new surface, and which marks students give away without noticing.

Every student starts from a diagnosis, not from chapter one. In the first lesson I look at a recent test or mock paper and separate three things that look the same on a report card: a concept that was never understood, a method that is known but slow, and marks lost in how the answer is written. Each one needs different work.

• IB Maths AA HL and SL, including HL Paper 3
• IB Maths AI HL and SL, including calculator technique
• IB Physics HL and SL on the current guide (first exams 2025)
• Maths and Physics Internal Assessment: topic, structure, criteria
• IGCSE and MYP Maths and Physics as the foundation for the Diploma

Dubai is two hours ahead of Central Europe in summer and three in winter, the smallest gap of any market I teach in outside Europe. A lesson at 5 pm in Dubai is early afternoon for me. Dubai schools run Monday to Friday, finish at about 3 pm from Monday to Thursday and by 11:30 am on Fridays, so Friday afternoon is a second natural slot.

The UAE does not change its clocks, so the lesson stays at the same Dubai time all year and only my side moves by an hour in spring and autumn. Students keep one fixed weekly slot, which matters more than it sounds: a lesson that floats around the week is the first thing dropped when mocks arrive.

Lessons happen on a video call with a shared whiteboard. The student writes on it too, so I see the working as it appears and not only the final answer. After every lesson a written report goes to the parents: what we covered, what went wrong, and what to practise before the next one.

My IB tutoring is AED 500 per lesson, invoiced monthly, at one or two lessons a week. Each lesson is 50 minutes, one to one.

Exam months and a second subject cost more, and are agreed after the first lesson. There are no packages and no volume discounts. Nothing longer than the month is required, and the first lesson, 50 minutes one to one, is paid by card when you book.

For scale: a repeated year at a top international school in Dubai costs from AED 90,000 in fees alone.

Most families book a programme, which holds a fixed weekly slot through to a clear point in the school year: the mocks, the IA deadline, or the May session.

Dubai schools reach the IB Diploma by three routes. IB continuum schools such as Dubai International Academy, GEMS World Academy, Raffles World Academy and NLCS Dubai teach the MYP first. JESS Arabian Ranches, GEMS Wellington, Repton and Nord Anglia teach IGCSE first. Dubai American Academy arrives from the American curriculum. Dubai College and Jumeirah College are A-Level schools.

The route matters for tutoring. A student arriving in DP1 from IGCSE usually has solid algebra and little experience of writing mathematics in sentences, which is what the IA and Paper 3 reward. A student arriving from the MYP is often the opposite: comfortable with investigation and explanation, less drilled in algebraic technique. The school pages linked below look at each route and what it means for Maths and Physics.

For Dubai students sitting the May 2027 session, which runs from late April to mid-May, the useful moment to start is before the mock exams, not after them. The deadlines that arrive first are internal: the Maths and Physics IA drafts, set by each school months before the written papers.

For students in the first year of the Diploma, the first term is when the gap between the previous course and DP pace shows up. It is also the cheapest moment to close it, because nothing has been built on top of the gap yet. For students choosing between Maths AA and AI, or HL and SL, the decision is easier to make well before the school’s option deadline than to reverse afterwards.