How many hours should an IGCSE crash course in Dubai actually run for?+
It depends on which of the four mark-loss categories dominates. If the marked script shows mostly method, command-term and timing losses, twelve to eighteen one-to-one hours across six weeks will usually move a grade, because exam technique responds quickly to correction. If recall losses dominate, meaning whole topics are missing, the same eighteen hours will move much less, and a longer weekly arrangement at a lower hourly rate is the better purchase. The honest sequence is to mark one paper, count the categories, then decide the hours. Deciding the hours first and discovering the category later is how families end up buying a second block.
My child's mock came back two grades below the predicted grade. Is a block still worth it?+
Often yes, but for a different reason than parents expect. A two-grade gap between mock and prediction usually means the prediction was built on classwork rather than timed performance, and timed performance is exactly what a block improves. Look at the script: if the answers show knowledge arriving late, unfinished or in the wrong form, that gap closes faster than it looks. If the paper has blank topics, the prediction was optimistic and the realistic target is one grade, not two. Either way, ask for the diagnostic to be marked before agreeing a number of hours, and ask what the tutor expects to be achievable.
Which syllabus code is my child entered for, and why does it change the plan?+
It is printed on the statement of entry the school issues, and it matters because the same subject name covers different papers. Cambridge Mathematics 0580 and Pearson Edexcel 4MA1 differ in paper structure and calculator rules. Cambridge Physics 0625 includes an alternative-to-practical paper with its own answer conventions. A tutor preparing the generic subject rather than the specific code will drill content that is correct but mis-aimed, and the alternative-to-practical paper in particular is the component most often left unprepared because it looks straightforward. Send the statement of entry before the first session.
Is there any point starting four weeks before the first paper?+
Four weeks can still change marks, but only on technique, and only if you are ruthless about scope. At that distance nothing new should be taught. The block becomes timed papers, marked against the scheme, with every loss logged and the next session targeting the largest category. Realistically that is one grade on one subject rather than improvement across a timetable. The common mistake at four weeks is spreading hours across three subjects, which moves none of them. Pick the component with the clearest technique gap, spend the hours there, and leave the rest to the school's own revision programme.
What do Dubai providers actually charge per hour for IGCSE help?+
Published rates across the Dubai market run roughly AED 45 to 150 an hour for budget or university-student tutors, AED 150 to 300 for a qualified subject tutor online, AED 180 to 500 for an in-home visit with travel inside the rate, and AED 200 to 450 or more for an IGCSE or A Level specialist. One premium provider publishes AED 650. Those figures come from provider pages and Bestimate's Tutoring Cost Dubai 2026 table, read in October 2026, and they are the market rather than an IB Gram price list. Our own figure follows the free trial and the diagnostic.
Do rates in Dubai go up the closer we get to the June series?+
The effective rate does, though published rate cards often do not change. What changes is availability: demand concentrates in the eight weeks before the June papers, and tutors with real subject depth fill their timetables first. A family booking in April is choosing from a smaller pool than the same family booking in January, and the specialist band is where that bites. The practical consequence is that booking early buys access to a better match rather than a discount. It is also why a block that starts after the mock results rather than after the Easter break tends to go better.
Can a block of hours change my child from Core to Extended?+
No, and this is worth being clear about before money changes hands. Tier is an entry decision made by the school and submitted to the board by a deadline that sits months before the exam. A Cambridge June entry, for example, closes in the spring, several months before the papers, and a November entry closes well ahead of the autumn window in the same way. Once that is submitted, the papers your child sits are fixed. What a block can do is raise the grade achieved on the tier entered, which on Core usually means converting near-misses into secure marks. If you want a tier changed, that conversation belongs with the school well before the entry deadline.
How does a crash course fit around Arabic and Islamic Education lessons?+
It has to be built around them, because they are not optional. Arabic, Islamic Education and Social or Moral Studies are mandatory in all Dubai private schools regardless of the licensed international curriculum, and KHDA calculates their instructional time on a forty-minute lesson unit. That time is already in the timetable before any tutoring is added. The practical answer is that a block has to replace something rather than sit on top of everything, and the thing most worth dropping is usually unstructured note re-reading. Sessions themselves work best in fixed evening slots that the family has deliberately cleared.
Can crash-course sessions shift to a post-Iftar slot once Ramadan starts?+
Yes, and for a block running through Ramadan that is usually the better arrangement rather than a concession. School days shorten, energy in the late afternoon drops, and a 17:00 session that worked in January stops working. Two patterns tend to hold: a late-morning slot on non-school days, or a post-Iftar session roughly ninety minutes after sunset. Either way the move should be made for the whole block rather than week by week, because a fixed slot is what keeps a short block intact. Eid days are planned out in advance and the hours redistributed rather than lost.
Is a group revision course at a Dubai centre better value than one-to-one hours?+
It can be, and the test is specific: how close is your child's weak component to the median weak component in the room? A group course has to teach to the middle. If the problem is shared, the lower rate is real value and the peer pace helps. If the problem is particular, which a marked script usually shows it to be, a large share of the paid hours goes on topics that were not the issue, and the cost per useful hour climbs above one-to-one. Many Dubai families use both: the centre or school clinic for breadth, a short one-to-one block for the one component.
Does my child's school revision clinic make paid hours unnecessary?+
Sometimes, and it is worth exhausting the free option first. School clinics are teacher-led, cost nothing extra and cover the syllabus again, which is exactly right if the gap is content. What they cannot easily do is work through one student's own marked script line by line and correct the specific habit costing marks, because the group size does not allow it. The sensible sequence is to use the clinic, then look at the next marked paper. If the same category of loss is still there after the clinic, that is the signal that one-to-one hours would add something the clinic cannot.
Does the tutor need a permit, and how do I check?+
Yes. Private tutoring in the UAE requires the MoHRE private tutor work permit, introduced by Ministerial Resolution No. 710 of 2023. It is granted free of charge for two years, and eligible applicants include registered school teachers, government and private-sector employees, unemployed residents, university students and school students aged 15 to 18. MoHRE's service page lists a two-working-day completion time with no fee. Ask any tutor directly whether they hold it and to show it; ask a centre with premises which authority licenses it. Individuals tutoring without a permit are subject to fines and penalties under the applicable laws.
Can the tutor help with the written coursework my child has to submit?+
A tutor can teach the skills it needs, explain the assessment criteria, model a technique on a different question, ask questions about a draft and say where an argument does not follow. A tutor cannot supply text that ends up in the submission, and no framing changes that. One provider found in this market sells finished Internal Assessments at AED 3,750; buying that is a malpractice risk for the student, not a shortcut. If a provider's offer is that something arrives finished, that is the line. Ask directly how feedback is given, and expect the answer to involve questions rather than paragraphs.
If we are sitting as a private candidate rather than through a school, does a block work differently?+
Yes, in two ways. First, you own the administration that a school would normally handle: finding a registered exam centre, meeting its entry deadline, and holding your own statement of entry with the correct timetable zone. Cambridge allocates every centre to one of six zones and says the right zone version of the timetable must be used, so that document matters more to a private candidate than to anyone else. Second, there is no school clinic, no mock programme and no predicted grade, so the diagnostic paper is doing more work. Plan for one extra timed paper early in the block.
Which subject should get the hours if we can only afford one block?+
Decide it against a written requirement rather than a feeling. If a sixth-form place depends on a specific grade in a specific subject, that subject wins. If the concern is Ministry of Education equivalency on the British track, the requirement is five accredited IGCSE subjects at no less than grade E or grade 3, with Arabic and Islamic Education excluded from those five, so the subject at risk of dropping below that line matters more than the one going from a 5 to a 7. Write the requirement down, check the predicted grades against it, and the choice usually makes itself.
What happens if the block is not working by the third session?+
You should be told, in writing, rather than discovering it at the end. Our mid-block review compares the running error log against the original diagnostic, and if a category has not moved the approach changes rather than the hours being increased. Sometimes the right answer is a different tutor, which we arrange without renegotiating the block. Occasionally the right answer is that the gap is content rather than technique and a short intensive block was the wrong purchase, in which case saying so is more useful than selling another six weeks. Ask at the outset how that conversation would be handled.
