IB DP Internal Assessment Tutor in Dubai

An internal assessment is the component of a Diploma subject that the school marks and the IB moderates. The phrase hides enormous variation. The group 4 sciences share one model — a scientific investigation marked across research design, data analysis, conclusion and evaluation — while mathematics uses an exploration marked on presentation, mathematical communication, personal engagement, reflection and use of mathematics. History uses a three-section investigation. Economics uses a portfolio of three commentaries on news articles. Language A and Language B both use an individual oral.

The practical consequence is that there is no such thing as general IA advice. A student told to improve their evaluation has been given actionable guidance in Chemistry, where evaluation is a named criterion worth a quarter of the marks, and vague guidance in mathematics, where the equivalent criterion is reflection and is worth three marks out of twenty. Matching a tutor to the subject, rather than to coursework in general, is the whole of the quality question here.

Weight varies as well, and it varies between levels inside the same subject. Several subjects place internal assessment at around a fifth of the final grade at both levels. Others weight it more heavily at Standard Level than at Higher, because the Higher Level course adds an external component that takes a share. Economics and History both follow that pattern, as does Language A. A student at Standard Level is therefore often risking more of their grade in the internally assessed component than their Higher Level classmate in the same subject.

Because those figures are revised when subject guides are revised, treat the table below as a map rather than as an authority, and confirm each number against the current guide for your child's session through the school's IB coordinator. What does not change is the shape of the problem: six components, six mark schemes, six internal deadlines, and one student.

Research for this page found that no competitor page in the UAE tutoring market names a single IA criterion with its mark allocation. That is the clearest information gap in the cluster, because the criteria are exactly what a student needs in order to know what to do next. A criterion is not a topic; it is a strand with a mark range and a descriptor, and work is placed in a band by whether it matches the descriptor rather than by how much effort it shows.

In the group 4 sciences the scientific investigation is marked out of twenty-four across four criteria of six marks each: research design, data analysis, conclusion and evaluation. Half the marks therefore sit in what the student does after the data exists, which is the opposite of how most students allocate their time. A beautifully conducted experiment written up with a conclusion that restates the result and an evaluation that lists generic limitations is collecting from two criteria and leaving two untouched.

The mathematics exploration is marked out of twenty across five criteria: presentation, mathematical communication, personal engagement, reflection, and use of mathematics. Use of mathematics carries the largest share, and personal engagement is the one that cannot be retrofitted — it is visible in whether the student chose something they have a reason to care about and did something of their own with it. The historical investigation is marked across three sections with the investigation itself carrying the largest block and the reflection carrying the smallest, which is where students misallocate words.

Reading the criteria with the student in front of their own draft is the most useful hour in IA support. Most students have never read the descriptors for the band above the one they are in, and once they do, the next revision is obvious rather than arbitrary.

Every IA has a limit and the limits are not advisory. The group 4 scientific investigation runs to around 3,000 words. The historical investigation sits near 2,200. An Economics commentary is capped at a few hundred words each, which is the tightest constraint in the Diploma and the reason Economics IAs reward ruthless cutting. The mathematics exploration is governed by a recommended page range rather than a word count. The individual orals are governed by minutes, not words.

Exceeding a limit does not add information; it removes it, because material beyond the limit need not be credited. The predictable casualty is the end of the document, which in almost every IA is where the evaluation or conclusion lives — and in the sciences that is half the mark scheme. Students who discover the problem late tend to move content into appendices, which does not help: an examiner is not obliged to read an appendix, so analysis parked there is marked as absent.

Coming in short is the lesser error but still costs. A scientific investigation at 1,400 words has usually skipped the evaluation of method and the discussion of uncertainty, which are named criteria. An Economics commentary that is short has usually described the article instead of applying theory to it. The right length is the length at which every criterion has been addressed with evidence, which is why planning against the criteria rather than against the word count produces the right number by accident.

There is also a formatting dimension worth ten minutes before submission: a clear title, the research question stated, labelled tables and figures referred to in the text, a consistent citation style, and raw data placed where the criteria expect it. None of that is difficult and all of it is routinely lost.

Internal assessment is marked by the school and moderated by the IB. The school submits a sample of marked work along with its marks, and the IB checks whether the school has applied the criteria as the IB applies them. If a school has marked generously, the cohort's marks can be adjusted down; if it has marked severely, they can be adjusted up. The adjustment applies at cohort level rather than being negotiated student by student.

This is the mechanism behind one of the more upsetting conversations a Dubai parent can have in July: a Chemistry IA that came back from the teacher with a strong mark, and a final subject grade that does not reflect it. Nobody has made an error. The school's marks were moderated, and the student's own mark moved with the cohort's. Understanding this in DP1 changes how a family reads internal feedback — a teacher's mark is an informed prediction against the criteria, not a banked result.

The practical defence is to write work that would survive a moderator who has never met the student. Moderators see the document and the criteria and nothing else: no knowledge of the school, the laboratory, the dataset's provenance or the effort behind it. Anything the student assumed the reader would know has to be on the page. This is also why a marked draft from someone outside the school is useful — an outside reader notices the assumptions a teacher fills in automatically.

One further point for students repeating a session. Schools can usually carry forward internally assessed marks for a candidate retaking examinations within the permitted period rather than requiring the coursework again, but the rules and the window are specific. Ask the IB coordinator before assuming either way, because the answer changes what a retake year looks like.

Internal assessment deadlines are set by the school, which is the single most important fact about them. The IB sets the dates by which the school must submit marks and samples; the school decides when your child's draft and final version are due, and schools work backwards from the submission date with their own margin. Two Dubai students in neighbouring communities can therefore face completely different calendars for identical subjects.

What they have in common is clustering. Because every department works back from the same submission window, the deadlines converge, usually in the middle of DP2 and frequently in the same weeks as the Extended Essay final submission and university applications. Add Ramadan's shortened school days in some years and the practical working time inside that window shrinks further. No single deadline in the list is unreasonable; the list is.

Sequencing is therefore the highest-value hour of IA support available, and it is almost never bought. The order should be set by marks at risk rather than by which date is nearest: a Standard Level Economics portfolio worth around 30 per cent of that subject's grade outranks a Higher Level component worth 20 per cent of another, and a science investigation with no data collected yet outranks a draft that only needs tightening, because data collection cannot be compressed.

Ask for the full internal deadline list in writing in the first fortnight of DP2, put every date on one calendar with the component's weight beside it, and work out where the collisions are while there is still room to move. Every IA emergency we are called into was visible on that calendar months earlier.

Every IA is submitted as the student's own work under the IB's academic honesty rules, and the school's coordinator authenticates it. A submission containing material the student did not produce is a malpractice matter, and the consequences land on the student — up to the loss of the Diploma — rather than on whoever supplied the material. In this market the warning is specific rather than abstract: research for these pages found a site ranking for UAE IB searches that sells finished coursework outright, priced per piece.

The legitimate scope of support is wide enough that nobody needs to cross the line. A tutor may test whether a research question is answerable with the available equipment. They may insist on controlled variables before data collection. They may teach a statistical treatment and make the student explain it back. They may mark a draft against the criteria, name the marks, quote the descriptor for the band above, and refuse to accept a conclusion the data does not support. They may teach a student to cut 400 words without losing a criterion.

What a tutor may not do is supply any part of the submitted document, rewrite a section to completion, carry out the analysis on the student's behalf, or produce the data. Our tutors return drafts with questions, annotations and criterion judgements rather than with replacement text. The test is whether the student can explain every change and why it earns marks; if they cannot, the work has stopped being theirs.

Tell your child's teacher that a tutor is involved. There is nothing to conceal in criteria-based coaching, and a teacher who knows will usually be clearer about which criterion the draft is weakest on. We also do not distribute IB subject guides, past papers or mark schemes, which are the IB's copyright — the current guide comes from the school's coordinator.

IA support prices as subject-specialist work, because the useful version requires someone who knows the criteria for that subject and has seen how students lose marks against them. The published Dubai market gives the range: EdFlik advertises from AED 45-65 an hour, Tutopiya from AED 33-52, Unitors publishes IGCSE tuition from AED 150 and IB from AED 200, TutorChase shows AED 270, Bestimate's 2026 Dubai rate table puts specialist IB, IGCSE and A Level tuition at AED 200-450 or above and in-home one-to-one at AED 180-350, and BartyED publishes AED 650 for a premium named tutor. Each of those is that provider's own published figure.

IB Gram does not publish a rate card on these pages. The model is a free trial lesson first, one per family and no card details taken, then the specific tutor's rate confirmed in writing before any paid session. For IA work the sensible purchase is small and timed: one or two sessions at the design stage, one analysis clinic once data exists, one criteria-marked read before the school deadline. A standing weekly slot across DP2 is rarely the right shape for coursework that has a fixed end point.

Three factors move the number. Stage is the first and largest: a design session before collection is ordinary subject tutoring, while a marked draft returned in 48 hours before a deadline is specialist work with a scheduling cost. Subject scarcity is the second — Psychology and Geography specialists are harder to find at Diploma level than Biology or Economics. The third is multiplicity: a student needing three subjects' IAs read in one fortnight is buying three specialists, not one tutor.

For context on the overall spend, KHDA confirmed in May 2026 that private school fees in Dubai would not rise for the 2026-27 academic year under the emirate's economic incentives package. Against a Diploma-year fee, two or three well-timed IA sessions are a small line. The expensive pattern is unplanned hours bought in the last fortnight across three subjects at once.

Parents in Dubai search for a home tutor, so the comparison belongs here in full. An in-home tutor costs more per hour because travel sits inside the rate: published bands put in-home one-to-one at roughly AED 180-350 against AED 150-300 for a qualified online hour. Travel also fixes the timetable, and IA work does not respect timetables. A draft arrives on a Thursday night, a deadline moves, a dataset turns out to be unusable. Any of those needs a session within two days, which is the thing an in-home arrangement cannot do.

IB Gram does not offer home visits in the UAE. Tuition for UAE families is delivered one-to-one over live video, and in-home tutoring is a service we run only in India. We say that on every UAE page because two providers in this market route UAE parents to numbers in another country without disclosing where the tutor sits.

For internal assessment the online format has a concrete advantage: the work is a document and a dataset, and both live on a shared screen. A spreadsheet of results is manipulated together, with the student driving. Uncertainty calculations are worked live. A draft is annotated against the criteria with the descriptor visible beside it. Every marked version is kept, so the progress from draft one to draft three is evidence rather than recollection — which also matters if a school later asks how the work developed.

The decisive factor is subject matching. A Dubai family needing a Psychology IA read against its criteria needs a Psychology specialist, not whoever teaches sciences and lives nearby. Online, availability becomes a question of Gulf Standard Time rather than driving distance, and a student can see a different specialist for each of three subjects in the same week.