IB Home Tutor in Al Reem Island

Every Diploma subject divides its grade between external written papers and one internal assessment supervised by the school. The split varies by subject and by level, and the variation matters because it tells a family which component is worth a paid hour. A component carrying thirty per cent of a standard level grade deserves a different amount of attention from one carrying twenty.

The broad pattern is this. In the sciences and mathematics the internal assessment carries about a fifth of the grade and the written papers the rest. In several humanities subjects the internal component is heavier at standard level than at higher level, because higher level adds a third paper that absorbs weighting. In the language A subjects the individual oral is a substantial component at standard level and sits alongside an additional higher level essay at higher level.

Two practical consequences follow. First, a standard level student in a humanities subject may have more of their grade inside the internal component than a higher level student in the same subject, which inverts the usual assumption that higher level students need more support. Second, the components with published criteria and no time limit are systematically the best value for tutoring, and they are systematically the least prepared.

The table below gives the shape by subject group. Weightings are set in each subject's current guide and are revised between syllabus versions, so confirm the exact figures for your child's cohort with the school's IB coordinator. The point of the table is the pattern, not a substitute for the guide.

An internal assessment is not marked holistically. It is marked criterion by criterion, each criterion carrying a stated number of marks, and a student can produce something genuinely impressive that scores poorly because it addressed three criteria and ignored two. This is the single most common and most correctable failure in the Diploma, and it is entirely a literacy problem rather than an ability one.

Take the mathematics exploration, which is marked out of twenty. Presentation carries four marks for coherence, organisation and focus. Mathematical communication carries four for notation and consistency. Personal engagement carries three. Reflection carries three. Use of mathematics carries six, and rewards mathematics that is correct, relevant and commensurate with the course, which means an elegant piece pitched below the course level cannot reach the top band however well written it is.

The reflection criterion is where the pattern repeats across subjects. In the exploration, three marks are available for genuine reflection on the mathematics, and a very large number of submissions use that section to summarise what the student did. In the sciences, the evaluation strand rewards honest discussion of limitations and realistic improvements rather than a list of generic sources of error. In a historical investigation, the evaluation of sources and methods is its own marked section with its own expectations.

A tutor's legitimate role here is to teach this literacy. They can explain each criterion and what its marks are awarded for, test whether a topic the student proposed can reach the top band, teach the techniques involved, and give feedback on a draft the student wrote. No tutor may write the work, rewrite a draft into its final form, or supply text for submission. One page competing for these searches sells completed internal assessments outright, which is an academic-integrity breach that puts the student's Diploma at risk rather than the provider's business.

Limits are assessed boundaries rather than guidance, and a student who exceeds one is not penalised by a deduction so much as by having work beyond the limit disregarded, which quietly removes the conclusion they spent the most effort on. Knowing the numbers early changes how a piece is planned, and it is the cheapest thing a tutor can tell a Diploma student.

The headline figures are these. The Extended Essay has an upper limit of 4,000 words. The Theory of Knowledge essay has an upper limit of 1,600 words on a prescribed title. The Theory of Knowledge exhibition commentary runs to around 950 words across three objects, which works out at roughly 300 words per object and is far less room than students assume. The science internal assessment report has a stated word limit in the current guide, as do the historical investigation, the geography fieldwork report and the business management research project. The mathematics exploration is governed by a recommended page range rather than a word count.

What those limits do to planning is more important than the numbers. A 4,000-word Extended Essay cannot carry three research strands, so the research question has to be narrow enough to answer and broad enough to sustain, which is a judgement a supervisor and a tutor can both help test. A 1,600-word Theory of Knowledge essay cannot survey a prescribed title; it has to take a position and defend it with precise examples. Around 300 words per exhibition object leaves room for the object, the prompt link and the justification, and nothing else.

Because limits are revised between syllabus versions, confirm the exact figure for your child's cohort with the school's IB coordinator before planning around any number, including the ones in the table below. The pattern is stable. The specific digits are not guaranteed to be, and a tutoring page is the wrong authority for a boundary a student's grade depends on.

Command terms are the verbs at the start of an examination question, and in the IB they are defined terms with assessment consequences. "State" asks for a specific answer with no supporting argument. "Outline" asks for a brief account. "Describe" asks for a detailed account without reasons. "Explain" asks for reasons or causes. "Analyse" asks a student to break an idea into parts and show how they relate. "Evaluate" and "discuss" ask for a judgement supported by evidence. "To what extent" asks explicitly for a weighted conclusion.

Students lose marks in two symmetrical ways. They write the long answer to the short instruction, spending five minutes producing an explanation when two marks were available for a statement, and then run out of time on the question that needed the explanation. Or they write the short answer to the long instruction, giving a description where reasons were required, and earn half the marks for knowledge that was entirely sufficient.

Neither failure is about understanding, which is why re-teaching content does not fix it. The correction is mechanical: read the command term, write down what it demands, size the answer to the marks available, and check at the end that the demanded verb was actually performed. A tutor can audit a student's own marked paper for this in a single session and the pattern is usually immediately visible, because students are consistent in which direction they err.

The same discipline applies inside internal assessments, where the criteria themselves use command-like language. A criterion asking the student to evaluate is not satisfied by description, and a criterion asking for justification is not satisfied by assertion. Teaching a student to read criteria the way they read a command term is one of the few interventions that pays off across all six subjects at once.

Past papers are the most over-prescribed and under-used resource in the Diploma. A student who does twenty papers without marking them properly has rehearsed their existing habits twenty times. A student who does six papers and marks each one against the published scheme, with somebody competent sitting beside them, has learned six papers' worth of what the examiner rewards.

The working unit is therefore a paper plus its marking, and that is a ninety-minute job rather than a sixty-minute one. The paper is sat under conditions: timed, no notes, calculator rules respected, and in a non-calculator component genuinely without one. Then it is marked together, question by question, against the published scheme, with the specific reason for each lost mark named. Not "careless" but "the command term asked for reasons and the answer described".

From that process comes the only artefact that matters: a ranked list of topics and techniques costing the most marks, updated after each paper. If that list is not getting shorter across six weeks, the sessions are not working and the plan should change. This is the measurable thing a parent can ask about, and it is a far better question than asking how the sessions are going.

One boundary on materials. We do not reproduce or distribute IB, Cambridge or Pearson syllabus documents, past papers, mark schemes, grade-boundary tables or subject guides. Those belong to the boards and are published through the boards' own channels and through your child's school. A tutor's job is to teach a student to work with them, not to hand over a copy, and a provider offering a library of mark schemes as a download is offering something that is not theirs to give.

The two written core components are where the authorship boundary matters most, because both are long, both are produced over months, and both are supervised rather than invigilated. The Extended Essay is a 4,000-word independent research piece with a school supervisor. The Theory of Knowledge essay is 1,600 words on a prescribed title. Both are assessed against published criteria and both carry points in combination.

What a tutor can legitimately do is substantial. They can help test whether a research question is answerable within 4,000 words, which is the single decision that determines whether the essay works. They can explain what each criterion rewards and how the marks are distributed. They can teach the research and referencing skills the task assumes. They can read a draft the student has written and say where it does not yet meet a criterion. They can help a student plan a timetable that meets the school's internal deadline rather than the external one.

What no tutor may do is produce the work. No tutor should write the essay, rewrite a draft into its final form, edit it to completion, or supply text for submission. The IB's academic-honesty framework makes authorship the student's responsibility, and a malpractice finding costs the student the Diploma. This is the clearest line in Diploma tutoring and it is also the one a competitor in this market crosses commercially, which is why we state it in writing rather than assume it is understood.

A practical note for Al Reem Island families specifically. School internal deadlines for both components are set per campus and sit well before the external ones. Establish those two dates in the first term of DP2, because a coaching block has to be scheduled backwards from them and a student who starts a 4,000-word essay four weeks out will produce something within the word limit and below their capability.

Al Reem Island is dense and vertical, and most of its secondary students leave it each morning. Campuses serving the island end their taught day between about 14:45 and 15:30, with co-curricular sessions running later on some days. A student travelling back from the Khalifa City corridor is typically not home before 16:15, and later on an activity day.

Allowing three quarters of an hour at home, the honest earliest start is about 16:30 for a student at a campus close to the island and about 17:30 for a mainland commute. Our Abu Dhabi scheduling range runs from 16:30 to 21:00 Gulf Standard Time. In an exam term, the slots that survive are the ones at 18:00 and 18:30, and anything after 20:00 is competing with sleep, which in DP2 is a false economy.

Component work shapes the session length more than the subject does. A past-paper block needs ninety minutes, because the marking is the point. An internal assessment coaching session works in sixty, because the material is the student's own draft. A command-term audit can be done in a single session of either length. Agreeing what the session is for also settles how long it should be, which is a better conversation than choosing a duration first.

Because the lesson is delivered over live video, a late school finish moves the session rather than cancelling it, and a family travelling over a half term keeps the arrangement with a time-zone adjustment. IB Gram does not offer home visits anywhere in the UAE, which removes the journey from both sides and removes the travel component from the rate. For the record, published market bands put in-home one-to-one at AED 180-500 an hour against AED 150-300 for a qualified tutor working online, with Bestimate quoting AED 180-350 for in-home work. Those are market figures, attributed, not our prices.