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Flag of the UAEthe UAEONLINE MYP PERSONAL PROJECT SUPPORT FOR UAE FAMILIES

IB MYP Personal Project Help in the UAE

Your child's MYP 5 year ends with a piece of work nobody else can sit for them: one learning goal, one product, three criteria and a report that has to carry its own evidence. IB MYP personal project help in the UAE means a specialist working beside that process over live video, reading the process journal, pressure-testing the success criteria and keeping every line of it inside IB academic-integrity rules. Lessons run one-to-one in Gulf Standard Time, around a Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah or northern-emirates school calendar, and the first one is a free trial lesson.

  • Criteria A, B and C taught strand by strand, not summarised
  • Process journal reviewed before each recorded supervisor meeting
  • Report limits checked against the IB Projects guide, not guessed
  • Delivered one-to-one over live video in Gulf Standard Time

24

marks across the three Personal Project criteria

1,500–3,500

words in a written or electronic project report

5

separate bodies regulating UAE private schools

3

supervisor meetings the integrity form must record

International schools near the UAE
  • Dubai International Academy – Emirates Hills
  • Dubai International Academy – Al Barsha
  • GEMS World Academy – Dubai
  • Uptown International School
  • Dwight School Dubai
  • Greenfield International School
  • Universal American School Dubai
  • GEMS World Academy – Abu Dhabi
  • Raha International School
  • Abu Dhabi International School
  • The American Community School of Abu Dhabi
  • Cranleigh Abu Dhabi
  • Victoria International School of Sharjah
  • Ajman Academy
  • RAK Academy
  • Ras Al Khaimah English Speaking School
  • Sharjah English School

School names are shown for local academic context only. IB Gram is an independent tutoring platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or representing any school listed here.

IB & IGCSE in the UAE

Why a Personal Project term in the UAE is a school-system problem before it is a study problem

The Personal Project is the only piece of MYP work a student designs, runs and evidences largely alone. In MYP 5 — Year 11 in most British-system schools in Dubai, Grade 10 in most American-system ones — your child states a learning goal, names a product, builds success criteria for it, keeps a process journal, meets a supervisor three times and submits a report. The school marks that report against three criteria worth eight marks each. There is no external exam paper anywhere in the process, which is exactly why families underestimate it until February.

In the UAE that sits inside a second structure parents rarely see on a school website. Your child's school answers to an emirate regulator: KHDA in Dubai, ADEK in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, the Sharjah Private Education Authority in Sharjah, the Department of Knowledge in Ras Al Khaimah, and the federal Ministry of Education in Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah. That regulator licenses the curriculum the school may teach, and in Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah it approves 'tuition fees, curricula, programmes, courses, activities and assessment methods' directly, according to the UAE government's own private-schools page on u.ae. The project deadline your child is working to was set inside those constraints.

Running alongside the MYP timetable are the subjects federal rules require of every private school whatever its licensed curriculum: Arabic, Islamic Education and Social or Moral studies. KHDA's mandatory-subjects guidance calculates the weekly requirement on a 40-minute lesson unit, requires separate classes for Arab and non-Arab students in Arabic as a first language, Islamic Education and Social Studies, and states that combined classes for both groups 'are strictly prohibited' because the curriculum expectations and language of instruction differ. For a student in a project term, those periods are not spare capacity to borrow back.

IB MYP personal project help in the UAE, done honestly, works inside all of that. We deliver it one-to-one over live video, in Gulf Standard Time, scheduled around your school's published calendar. A specialist reads the process journal, asks the questions a supervisor will ask, explains what each criterion strand is actually looking for, and then stops. The goal, the product, the journal entries and every sentence of the report remain your child's own work, because IB academic-integrity rules make this the student's project and nobody else's. A tutor who offers more than that is offering your child a malpractice finding.

This page is the school-system version of the answer. It sets out the three criteria and the marks behind them, the report formats and their limits, what each emirate regulator actually controls, the mandatory UAE subjects that sit beside the project, the project year counted backwards from the school's report deadline, where coaching ends and malpractice begins, what the MoHRE private tuition work permit means for anyone you pay, what the MYP does and does not do for Ministry of Education equivalency, and what the UAE market charges. Rates are attributed to their source and dated; none of them is our price list.

At a glance

  • Three criteria — Planning, Applying skills, Reflecting — eight marks each, 24 in total
  • Written and electronic reports run 1,500–3,500 words; oral and visual formats run 13–15 minutes
  • Five different bodies regulate private schools across the seven emirates
  • The MoHRE private tuition work permit is granted free of charge for two years
  • Arabic, Islamic Education and Social Studies continue alongside the MYP, not instead of it
  • Lessons are online and one-to-one; home visits are a service we offer only in India
IB programmes

Every IB programme stage, mapped to UAE school years

The Personal Project belongs to the MYP, but the family decision around it usually spans two programmes: the one your child is finishing and the one they are about to start. Here is where each sits in a UAE school, and what the local system adds to it.

MYPAges 11–16 · MYP 1–5

Middle Years Programme

Five years across eight subject groups, assessed internally against four criteria per subject, each marked out of eight. There is no external paper unless the school opts into MYP eAssessment. The programme closes with the Personal Project in MYP 5, which is assessed against its own three criteria and reported as a separate 1–7 grade. Interdisciplinary units and the earlier Community Project are the rehearsal for it.

UAE MYP cohorts often sit beside an IGCSE stream in the same building, because many schools switch to Cambridge or Edexcel at Year 10. That makes MYP 4 and 5 a smaller, more exposed group, and it is why a UAE family looking for project support frequently cannot find anyone inside their own school with spare capacity.

PYPAges 3–12 · PYP

Primary Years Programme

Inquiry-led primary learning across six transdisciplinary themes, closing with the PYP Exhibition — a collaborative, teacher-supported investigation that is the first cousin of the Personal Project. Children who have done an Exhibition arrive in MYP 5 already understanding what a research question and a reflection log are for, which shortens the planning stage considerably.

Dubai's private sector served 387,441 students across 227 schools offering 17 different curricula in 2024-25, with the IB accounting for 7% of enrolment according to the Dubai Media Office. A family moving between UAE schools can easily cross from a PYP setting into a British primary and back, so prior Exhibition experience is worth asking about rather than assuming.

DPAges 16–19 · DP1–DP2

Diploma Programme

Six subjects at Higher or Standard Level plus the core: Theory of Knowledge, Creativity Activity Service and the 4,000-word Extended Essay. The Extended Essay is the Personal Project's successor — a single long independent piece with a supervisor, a reflection record and an integrity declaration. Students who kept a real process journal in MYP 5 find the EE reflection sessions straightforward.

Dubai's 2026-27 intake adds seven new private schools, three of them International Baccalaureate, creating 16,846 new places according to KHDA. More DP places in the emirate means more MYP 5 students staying in the IB rather than transferring out at 16, and a project done properly is the cleanest evidence a DP coordinator has of independent working.

CPAges 16–19

Career-related Programme

The IB's fourth programme, combining DP courses with a career-related study and a reflective project. Provision in the UAE is thin — most IB World Schools here run PYP, MYP and DP only — so treat it as an option to verify on the IB's own programme list for a specific school rather than something to plan around.

If a UAE school offers the CP, the reflective project carries the same academic-integrity architecture as the Personal Project: a supervisor, recorded meetings and a signed declaration. Families weighing it after MYP 5 should ask the school's coordinator which pathway their current project work actually feeds, because the two are assessed differently.

Subject coverage

IB and IGCSE subjects we tutor

A Personal Project is not a subject, but it always leans on one. The learning goal almost always sits inside an MYP subject group, and the marks follow the quality of the thinking there. These are the eight groups plus the project itself, with what each actually assesses.

Language and Literature

MYP 1–5

Analysing and producing texts, assessed on analysing, organising, producing text and using language. Project goals here tend toward writing a novella, a magazine or a translation. The usual marks problem is a product that demonstrates skill but a report that never names which analytical technique the student actually learned.

Language Acquisition

MYP 1–5, phases 1–6

Listening, reading, speaking and writing in an additional language, placed by phase rather than year group. Popular project goals include reaching a conversational level in a new language or subtitling a film. Criterion B marks depend on evidencing the ATL skill used, not the fluency reached.

Individuals and Societies

MYP 1–5

History, geography, economics and civics, assessed on knowing and understanding, investigating, communicating and thinking critically. This group produces the strongest project goals in UAE schools — local heritage, urban planning, migration — and the weakest success criteria, because social outcomes resist measurement.

Sciences

MYP 1–5

Biology, chemistry and physics taught as integrated sciences in earlier years, assessed on knowing and understanding, inquiring and designing, processing and evaluating, and reflecting on the impacts of science. Science-led projects fail on scope more than on method: a controlled investigation sized for a term, not a career.

Mathematics

MYP 1–5, Standard and Extended

Assessed on knowing and understanding, investigating patterns, communicating, and applying mathematics in real-life contexts. Extended mathematics in MYP 4 and 5 is the route into DP Analysis and Approaches. Projects that use statistics need the success criteria to specify sample size and method before any data is gathered.

Arts

MYP 1–5

Visual arts, music, drama and media, assessed on knowing and understanding, developing skills, thinking creatively and responding. Arts projects usually have the best products and the thinnest criterion C, because evaluating your own creative work against stated criteria feels unnatural to a fifteen-year-old without practice.

Design

MYP 1–5

The inquiring and analysing, developing ideas, creating the solution and evaluating cycle. Design is the closest subject to the project's own structure, which is why Design students often score well on criterion A. The risk is the opposite: a specification so detailed the student never reflects on learning.

Physical and Health Education

MYP 1–5

Assessed on knowing and understanding, planning for performance, applying and performing, and reflecting on performance. Fitness and coaching projects are common in the UAE. Marks hinge on whether the training plan was a documented plan with measures, or a log of what happened.

Interdisciplinary units

MYP 1–5

Required units that combine two or more subject groups, assessed on evaluating, synthesising and reflecting. These are the formal rehearsal for the Personal Project's integrative demands, and a student's interdisciplinary grades are the single best predictor of how much planning support the project will need.

The Personal Project

MYP 5, three criteria, 24 marks

Planning, Applying skills and Reflecting, each marked out of eight, converted by the school into a 1–7 grade. The learning goal, product, success criteria, process journal and report are all the student's own. A tutor's role is explaining the criteria and questioning the evidence, never supplying either.

How sessions run

Tutoring formats built around UAE school timetables

Project support is not a weekly subject lesson, because the workload is not weekly. It clusters around the three recorded meetings and the report deadline. These are the shapes UAE families actually book, all delivered one-to-one over live video.

Weekly planning sessions through the autumn term

One hour a week from the project launch to the second recorded meeting, aimed entirely at criterion A. The session works on the learning goal, the product definition and the success criteria, and ends with the student writing the journal entry themselves while the tutor is still on the call. This is the cheapest stage to fix anything in.

  • Goal narrowed until it can be evidenced in one term
  • Success criteria rewritten as measures, not adjectives
  • Journal entries dated and written by the student in session
  • A plan mapped against the school's own milestone dates

Milestone blocks before each recorded meeting

A two-hour block in the week before each supervisor meeting. The tutor reads the journal, lists what a supervisor will ask, and rehearses the answers with the student. Families who use only this shape typically book three blocks across the year and nothing else, which is the lowest-cost route for a well-organised student.

  • Journal audited against criteria A and B before the meeting
  • Questions a supervisor is likely to ask, rehearsed aloud
  • The academic integrity form checked for missing signatures
  • Agreed actions written down by the student

Report-stage review in the final six weeks

Sessions concentrated between the product being finished and the report deadline, working on criterion C and on keeping the report inside its format limit. The tutor reads the student's draft back to them with questions attached. No text is supplied, rewritten or edited to completion, because that would make the submission inadmissible.

  • Format limit confirmed against the IB Projects guide
  • Criterion C evaluated against the original success criteria
  • Journal extracts chosen by the student for the appendices
  • Bibliography checked for consistency and completeness

Subject support running alongside the project

Where the project leans on a subject the student is also struggling with, a separate weekly slot in that subject group runs in parallel. Keeping them apart matters: project sessions are about criteria and evidence, subject sessions are about content. Mixing the two is how a project term quietly becomes maths tuition.

  • Separate slot, separate objectives, separate notes
  • Subject criteria taught on their own four-criterion scale
  • Useful where Extended mathematics or Sciences underpins the goal
  • Can continue into DP1 once the project is submitted
Verified tutors

IB and IGCSE tutors available to students in the UAE

The specialists below work with MYP 4 and MYP 5 students on project planning, ATL skill evidence and report-stage review, alongside the subject group the project draws on. Every session is one-to-one over live video, scheduled in Gulf Standard Time around your school's own milestone dates rather than a driving radius.

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The full picture

What IB and IGCSE study actually looks like in the UAE

01

What a UAE parent is actually buying when they search for Personal Project help

  • Goal too broad to evidence — a planning problem, two to four sessions
  • Vague success criteria — a criterion A and C problem, fixable early, expensive late
  • Thin process journal — a criterion B problem, and the hardest to repair
  • Report over its format limit — a structure problem, not a word-trimming one

IB MYP personal project help in the UAE is one-to-one teaching, delivered online, that prepares a student to run their own project against the IB's three criteria. It is not a writing service and it is not a product-building service. The marks belong to the school, the work belongs to the student, and the tutor's job is to make the criteria legible and the plan realistic enough to survive a UAE school year.

What a family wants at the moment of searching is usually narrower than the word 'help'. Three requests dominate. The learning goal is too broad to evidence in a term. The success criteria are adjectives rather than measures, so there is nothing for criterion C to evaluate against later. Or the report is six weeks away and the process journal has four entries in it, three of them from September. Those are three different pieces of teaching and they take very different numbers of hours.

The second thing families want, and rarely say out loud, is somebody who recognises the school system the deadline came from. A Dubai MYP 5 cohort, a Sharjah one and an Ajman one are working to calendars approved under three different authorities, and how much a deadline can move differs accordingly. A tutor who asks which emirate the school sits in before quoting a plan is asking a better question than one who asks only for the subject.

The third is scheduling that survives a UAE school week. Sessions run in Gulf Standard Time, after the school run and around mandatory-subject periods that cannot be traded away, and they continue through the February break and the Ramadan timetable shift rather than pausing exactly when the report deadline tightens. That is the practical case for live video over a tutor's driving radius: the specialist is chosen for the subject group, not for proximity.

02

The three Personal Project criteria, strand by strand, and the marks behind them

The Personal Project is assessed against three criteria, each marked out of eight, for a total of 24. Criterion A is Planning. Criterion B is Applying skills. Criterion C is Reflecting. The school converts the total into the 1–7 grade that appears on the report, using the project grade boundaries published in the IB's MYP Projects guide. No part of that conversion is a percentage, which is the first thing most parents have to unlearn.

Criterion A carries three strands and the order of them matters. The student states a learning goal and explains how a personal interest led to it; states an intended product and develops appropriate success criteria for that product; then presents a clear, detailed plan for achieving the product against those criteria. Most lost marks here are not effort, they are specificity. 'Learn more about marine conservation' is an interest, not a goal. 'A good website' is not a success criterion.

Criterion B has two strands, both about Approaches to Learning skills: how an ATL skill was applied to help achieve the learning goal, and how one was applied to help achieve the product. The evidence has to exist in the process journal before it can appear in the report. A journal kept twice a term produces a thin criterion B no matter how impressive the finished product is, and no amount of report-stage polish recovers it.

Criterion C also has two strands: the impact of the project on the student or their learning, and an evaluation of the product against the success criteria set out back in criterion A. If those criteria were vague, criterion C has nothing to measure against, so a weak A quietly caps C. Repairing criterion A in January, after the product is already half-built, is the single most common piece of work UAE families ask us for.

Confirm every figure in this section against your own school's copy of the IB Projects guide before planning around it. Schools moved to the current three-criterion model from an earlier four-criterion version, and the older material is still circulating on tutoring sites and in school handbooks that were never updated.

PERSONAL PROJECT ASSESSMENT — CRITERIA, STRANDS AND MARKS (IB MYP PROJECTS GUIDE; CONFIRM WITH YOUR SCHOOL'S COPY)
CriterionStrandsMarksWhat the strands actually ask forWhere UAE students lose the marks
A — Planning30–8Goal stated and linked to a personal interest; product named with success criteria; a clear, detailed planA goal that is really a topic, and criteria written as adjectives
B — Applying skills20–8How an ATL skill served the learning goal, and how one served the productNo journal evidence, so the skill is asserted instead of shown
C — Reflecting20–8Impact on the student or their learning; product evaluated against the stated success criteriaEvaluating against new criteria invented in the final fortnight
Total7 strands0–24Converted by the school into a 1–7 grade using the published project boundariesReading 24 marks as a percentage and panicking at 15
Supervisor meetings3 recordedNot markedLogged on the academic integrity form and signed by student and supervisorMeetings that happened but were never recorded
03

Report formats, their limits, and what still has to be evidenced in each

The report is where the three criteria are actually awarded, and it does not have to be a document. Written and electronic reports — a word-processed file, a website, a blog — run 1,500 to 3,500 words. Oral formats such as a podcast or a radio broadcast, and visual formats such as a film, run 13 to 15 minutes. The bibliography and the appendices sit outside the limit, so citing properly costs nothing in word count.

Format choice is a marks decision rather than a presentation one. A film looks compelling and eats the exact weeks criterion C needs, because editing time is not reflection time. A website lets a student hide criterion A behind navigation a marker has to hunt through. A written report is the easiest to over-write and the easiest to structure criterion by criterion, which is why most UAE students who choose it score more evenly even when their product is less showy.

Whatever the format, the same evidence has to be present and findable: the goal and its origin, the product and its success criteria, the plan, the ATL skills with journal evidence behind them, the impact on the student, and the evaluation against the criteria. Extracts from the process journal go in the appendices. A report that reads beautifully but leaves a marker reconstructing which strand is being addressed loses marks it never had to lose.

Students running close to a limit should cut structurally rather than sentence by sentence. Three paragraphs of background that no criterion asks for are worth more as space than as prose. In report-stage sessions the tutor reads the student's own draft back to them with questions attached and the student makes every change, because supplying text or editing to completion would make the submission inadmissible under IB rules.

REPORT FORMATS AND LIMITS — IB MYP PROJECTS GUIDE
Report formatLimitWhat still has to be evidencedThe trade-off UAE students hit
Written document1,500–3,500 wordsAll three criteria, with process journal extracts in the appendicesEasiest to over-write; background crowds out criterion C
Website or blog1,500–3,500 wordsThe same three criteria, reachable in a predictable orderDesign time competes directly with reflection time
Podcast or radio broadcast13–15 minutesThe same criteria, spoken, with the journal still submittedCriterion A detail is hard to keep inside the time
Film13–15 minutesThe same criteria, with the product shown and evaluated on screenEditing consumes the final weeks criterion C needs
Bibliography and appendicesOutside the limitSources in a consistent style; selected journal extractsTreated as optional and left thin
04

Who regulates your child's school, and what each authority actually controls

Five separate bodies regulate private schools across the seven emirates, and only one of them appears anywhere in the competitor pages surveyed for this query. KHDA oversees the quality of private education in Dubai. ADEK supervises licensing and accreditation in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. The Sharjah Private Education Authority regulates private education in Sharjah. The Department of Knowledge does so in Ras Al Khaimah. The Ministry of Education supervises private schools in Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah.

The distinction that matters to a project term is between inspection and approval. Sharjah's and Ras Al Khaimah's authorities approve tuition fees, curricula, programmes, courses, activities and assessment methods, according to the UAE government's private-schools page. A calendar that has been through that process is not something a head of year adjusts by email. In Dubai, by contrast, KHDA's published mandatory-subject requirements shape the timetable that project work has to fit around rather than the project deadline itself.

Inspection ratings are worth reading for a different reason. A regulator's published report on a school tells you where that school is already strong, and therefore where paid support adds least. If the inspection notes weak provision in a subject group your child's project leans on, that is a signal to look outside the school for subject depth. If it notes strong provision, the gap is more likely to be the student's planning discipline than the teaching.

None of this makes any tutoring provider a regulated education body. IB Gram is not a licensed UAE training institute and does not present itself as one: a KHDA Educational Services Permit is a specific authorisation issued to training institutes holding premises in Dubai, with initial approval first and annual renewal requested at least 30 days before expiry. Any provider describing itself as regulator-endorsed should be asked to show the permit number.

WHO REGULATES PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN EACH EMIRATE — SOURCE: U.AE PRIVATE SCHOOLS PAGE
EmirateRegulatorWhat it governsWhat it changes in a project termWhere to verify
DubaiKHDAQuality of private education; mandatory-subject requirementsMandatory-subject time is protected, so project work moves to evenings and weekendsweb.khda.gov.ae
Abu Dhabi and Al AinADEKLicensing and accreditation of private schoolsStaff ethics rules restrict who at the school may be paid to coach your childadek.gov.ae
SharjahSPEAPrivate education, plus approval of fees, curricula, programmes, courses, activities and assessment methodsThe published assessment calendar has already been approved, so deadlines move lessspea.shj.ae
Ras Al KhaimahDepartment of KnowledgePrivate education, with the same fee and curriculum approval roleFew IB continuum places, so subject specialists are usually found outside the emirateu.ae
Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and FujairahFederal Ministry of EducationSupervision of private schools in these three emiratesNo emirate-level authority to escalate a calendar question tomoe.gov.ae
05

The mandatory UAE subjects that run beside the project, and why they cannot be borrowed from

Private schools in the UAE are not obliged to follow a specific national curriculum beyond Arabic language, social studies and Islamic studies, but they must adhere to the Ministry's general regulations. That federal baseline is the reason an IB World School in Dubai teaches Arabic alongside the MYP rather than instead of it, and it is the reason a project term has less free timetable in it than a parent counting IB subject blocks would expect.

KHDA's mandatory-subjects guidance puts numbers on this. Weekly requirements are calculated on a 40-minute lesson unit, schools may vary the lesson length provided the weekly total is met, and KHDA advises that any mandatory-subject lesson should run at least 25 minutes. Schools must organise separate classes for Arab and non-Arab students in Arabic as a first language, Islamic Education and Social Studies, and combined classes for both groups are strictly prohibited because the curriculum expectations and language of instruction differ.

Language of instruction is specified too. Standard Arabic is required for Islamic Education for Arab students and for Arabic as a first language; Arabic is the primary language for Social Studies for Arab students; and for non-Arab students, Islamic Education and Moral, Social and Cultural studies are delivered in the school's licensed-curriculum language. Teachers of Islamic Education and Arabic must hold the appropriate KHDA authorisation for those subjects, which is a credential a parent can actually ask about.

There is one more constraint worth knowing before anyone offers your child extra material for these subjects. For the mandatory UAE subjects, using any different or additional content without prior permission from the Ministry of Education is strictly prohibited. That rules out the sort of improvised supplementary workbook a tutor might reach for in any other subject, and it is why Arabic and Islamic Education support has to track the school's own approved scheme of work closely.

MANDATORY UAE SUBJECTS ALONGSIDE THE MYP — SOURCE: KHDA MANDATORY SUBJECTS GUIDELINES
SubjectWho must take itLanguage of instructionClass organisation ruleWhat it means in a project term
Arabic as a first languageArab studentsStandard ArabicSeparate classes from the non-Arab group; combined classes prohibitedFixed weekly time that cannot be traded for project hours
Arabic as an additional languageNon-Arab studentsArabicTaught separately from the first-language groupCommonly the period a pressured MYP 5 student tries to skip
Islamic EducationMuslim studentsStandard Arabic for Arab students; the licensed-curriculum language for non-ArabsSeparate classes by groupTeachers need KHDA authorisation, so cover is never improvised
Social StudiesArab studentsArabicSeparate from the non-Arab provisionIts assessment weeks can land on a project milestone
Moral, Social and Cultural studiesNon-Arab studentsThe school's licensed-curriculum languageDelivered to the non-Arab groupIts project-style tasks get confused with the Personal Project
06

The project year counted backwards from the report deadline

Nobody publishes this table, and it is the one most families would use. Unlike an IGCSE or DP session, Personal Project dates are set by the school rather than by a board, so the windows below are typical rather than official. Take your own school's published milestone dates from the MYP coordinator and lay them over this shape; the sequence holds even when the months move.

The spine of the year is the three recorded supervisor meetings, because they are what the academic integrity form documents. Everything else arranges itself around them. The first meeting needs a stated goal, a named product and drafted success criteria. The second needs a plan with journal evidence behind it and the ATL skills identified. The third needs the work finished enough to be evaluated, and the form signed by both parties.

Counting backwards is what changes behaviour. If the report is due in early March, the product has to be finished in late January, which means the plan has to be real by the end of November, which means the goal has to be narrow by early October. A family that starts support in February is not buying project teaching; they are buying triage on a criterion A that was written five months earlier and cannot now be rebuilt.

Two later stages belong to the school rather than the student. Reports are standardised internally so that marking is consistent across supervisors, and where a school registers candidates for the IB MYP certificate, the personal project is submitted for IB moderation. Neither stage asks anything further of your child, but both are reasons a school's internal deadline sits well before the date the grade appears on a report card.

PERSONAL PROJECT YEAR, COUNTED BACKWARDS — TYPICAL UAE SCHOOL WINDOWS, SCHOOL-SET NOT BOARD-SET
MilestoneTypical window in a UAE school yearWho sets itWhat your child should have by then
Project launch and supervisor allocationLate August to early OctoberThe school's MYP coordinatorTwo or three candidate interests and a first attempt at a learning goal
First recorded supervisor meetingSeptember to OctoberThe schoolGoal stated, product named, success criteria drafted and dated in the journal
Second recorded supervisor meetingNovember to JanuaryThe schoolA plan evidenced in the process journal, with the ATL skills named
Product finishedJanuary to FebruaryThe student, against their own planA product complete enough to evaluate against the success criteria
Third meeting and integrity form signedBefore the report deadlineThe schoolAll three meetings logged and signed by student and supervisor
Report submittedFebruary to AprilThe schoolA report inside its format limit, with journal extracts selected
Internal standardisation and gradingAfter submissionThe schoolNothing further from the student
IB moderation, where the school registers for the MYP certificateThe school's registration windowThe IBNothing from the student; the school submits the sample
07

Academic honesty: the line a paid tutor does not cross

This is the section the essay mills in this search result do not have. One site found during research sells finished Internal Assessments outright. Under IB rules that is malpractice, and the consequence lands on the student, not the seller: an authentication failure on the project puts the MYP result and the student's standing with their own school at risk. A tutor teaches, questions and gives feedback on work the student has produced.

The practical test is simple. If a session ends with something on the page that the student did not think of and could not explain to their supervisor unprompted, the line has been crossed. That is why our project sessions end with the student writing the journal entry while the call is still running, and why report-stage work is done by reading the student's draft back to them with questions rather than by handing over revised text.

The academic integrity form is the formal mechanism. It records the supervisor meetings and is signed by student and supervisor, and it exists precisely so that a school can show the work developed over time with proper oversight. A student who has kept a dated journal and attended the recorded meetings has a paper trail. A student whose project appeared fully formed in February does not, and that absence is what triggers questions.

Parents sometimes ask where editing stops being feedback. A useful boundary: a tutor may explain what a criterion strand asks for, point to where a draft does not yet answer it, and ask the question that would expose the gap. A tutor may not supply sentences, restructure a draft on the student's behalf, choose the journal extracts, or build any part of the product. The table below sets this out task by task.

WHO MAY DO WHAT ON AN MYP PERSONAL PROJECT
TaskThe studentThe school supervisorA paid online tutorNot acceptable from anyone
Choosing the learning goalDecides itTests the scope and approves itAsks the questions that expose a goal too broad to evidenceA goal handed over ready-made
Setting the success criteriaDrafts themChecks them against the guideExplains what makes a criterion measurableA list of criteria supplied to be copied
Making the productMakes itMonitors progress at the recorded meetingsTeaches the underlying skill the product needsAny part of the product made by someone else
Keeping the process journalKeeps it, datedSees it at each meetingReads it and asks what evidence is missingEntries composed by a parent, sibling or tutor
The reportWrites it in their own wordsMarks itExplains the criterion and reads a draft back with questionsSupplied text, or editing to completion
The academic integrity formSigns itSigns itHas no part in it at allA signature without the meetings behind it
08

Is the person you are paying permitted to tutor in the UAE?

Private tutoring in the UAE is regulated by permit. The MoHRE private tuition work permit was introduced by Ministerial Resolution No. 710 of 2023, and it is granted free of charge for two years. Eligible applicants include teachers registered in government or private schools, employees in the government and private sectors, unemployed individuals, university students, and school students aged 15 to 18. The official route is MoHRE's own service, 'Issuance of a New Work Permit – Private Tutor Licensing'.

The permit is free, which is worth stating plainly because the fee question comes up constantly. MoHRE's service page lists no fee and a two-working-day completion time, with applications through the MoHRE smart app, website and e-services system. Individuals offering private tutoring without a permit are subject to fines and penalties under the applicable laws. No fine schedule has been published, so any figure circulating online as a specific amount should be treated as unverified.

Two conditions matter more than the permit itself for a project term. The permit's code of conduct bars serving students affiliated with the tutor's own school, and ADEK's professional-ethics rules for private and charter school staff in Abu Dhabi prohibit paid private tutoring of students enrolled at the teacher's own school. Both are press-reported rather than quoted from the live policy document here, so verify the current wording with ADEK before relying on it.

A tuition operation with premises and staff is a different legal animal from an individual tutor. In Dubai that requires a KHDA Educational Services Permit for a training institute, with initial approval first, a maximum of six months to complete the permit and licence steps, and annual renewal requested at least 30 days before expiry. A provider holding neither the individual permit nor the institute permit should not be describing itself in regulatory language at all.

PRIVATE TUITION PERMITS — MoHRE MINISTERIAL RESOLUTION NO. 710 OF 2023 AND KHDA INSTITUTE PERMITS
Who is tutoringPermit requiredIssued byValidity and costExtra condition a parent should check
Teacher working in a government or private schoolPrivate tuition work permitMoHRETwo years, granted free of chargeMay not serve students affiliated with their own school
Government or private-sector employeePrivate tuition work permitMoHRETwo years, granted free of chargeTheir employer's position on outside work
Unemployed UAE residentPrivate tuition work permitMoHRETwo years, granted free of chargeResidency status current at the time of application
University studentPrivate tuition work permitMoHRETwo years, granted free of chargeSubject depth at MYP 5 level, not simply a recent pass
School student aged 15 to 18Private tuition work permitMoHRETwo years, granted free of chargeSuited to peer study support, not project supervision
Tuition centre holding premises in DubaiKHDA Educational Services Permit for a training instituteKHDAAnnual renewal, requested at least 30 days before expiryAn institute permit is not the same as an individual tutor permit
09

What the MYP does and does not do for Ministry of Education equivalency

Equivalency is the process by which the UAE Ministry of Education recognises a foreign school certificate, and it bites at the end of secondary school rather than at the end of MYP 5. The Personal Project is not a school-leaving qualification and nobody attests it on its own. What it can do is sit on an application as evidence of independent research, which some admissions readers value and none of them require.

The British-track requirements are published and specific. Students must show five accredited subjects in GCSE or IGCSE certificates with a grade of no less than E or grade 3, plus one accredited subject at Advanced Level with a grade of no less than E, or two accredited subjects at Advanced Subsidiary Level at the same grade. Arabic and Islamic education are not included among the five required subjects, which is a detail at least one ranking competitor page gets wrong.

The American track turns on test scores rather than subject counts: English proficiency through a score of 5 in the IELTS academic test, 61 in the TOEFL iBT, or 450 in the reading and writing section of the SAT, and mathematics through at least 450 in the SAT Math test. Those figures come from reporting on the Ministry's clarification published in July 2026, and the same source states no IB points threshold at all.

That silence matters. No IB equivalency points figure in this project has been read on moe.gov.ae, so none is published here, and any tutoring site quoting one should be asked where it came from. Equivalency is also not something a tutoring provider performs, guarantees or accelerates — describe it, cite the authority, and apply through the official channel. Tutoring is not a requirement for equivalency, for university admission, or for progression into DP1.

For a family in MYP 5 the practical consequence is sequencing. The equivalency file belongs to the end of Year 13 or Grade 12, not to this year. What belongs to this year is the project, the MYP subject grades the school reports, and the decision about whether your child continues into the Diploma Programme or moves to an A-Level or American pathway — because that choice, not the project, determines which equivalency route eventually applies.

10

Online project supervision support versus an in-home tutor in the UAE

The honest comparison starts with what the UAE market charges. Rates surveyed from published UAE provider pages in October 2026 run from roughly AED 45–150 an hour at the budget and university-student end, AED 150–300 for a qualified subject tutor online, AED 180–500 for an in-home one-to-one visit with travel included, AED 200–450 and above where IB or IGCSE specialism is required, and AED 500–650 or more at the premium end. Those are market figures from other providers, not our price list.

Monthly shapes circulate too. Published packages seen during research included around AED 799 a month for eight online sessions and AED 1,599–1,799 a month for four two-hour in-home sessions. Bestimate's Tutoring Cost Dubai 2026 rate table puts monthly spend for a weekly one-hour session at roughly AED 240–600 at the budget end, AED 600–1,200 in the middle, and AED 1,000–2,000 or more for specialist exam-year support. Dated figures from a named source beat a vague promise.

Where an in-home visit loses on a project specifically is tutor pool, not quality. A Personal Project in Design, Arts or Sciences needs somebody who knows that subject group's criteria, and the number of such people living within a reasonable drive of a given UAE address is small — much smaller in Al Ain, Ajman or Fujairah than in Dubai. Travel time is also real money: a Dubai school-run window can absorb forty minutes each way, and that sits inside the rate.

IB Gram delivers UAE tuition as one-to-one online lessons over live video; home visits are a service we offer only in India. For project work that is a genuine advantage rather than a compromise. The journal and the draft are on a shared screen, the plan is written in the session, the specialist is chosen by subject group rather than by postcode, and a 4pm slot and an 8:30pm slot cost the same. The first session is a free trial lesson.

DELIVERY OPTIONS AND UAE MARKET RATES — SURVEYED FROM PUBLISHED PROVIDER PAGES, OCTOBER 2026
OptionWhat it isAED per hour (market, October 2026)The logistics realityBest suited to
Online one-to-one specialistLive video with the journal and draft on a shared screen150–300 for a qualified subject tutor; 200–450+ where IB specialism is requiredNo travel either way, so a 4pm and an 8:30pm slot cost the sameCriterion-level teaching and report-stage review
In-home one-to-one visitA tutor travelling to a UAE address, which IB Gram does not offer180–500, with travel priced into the quoteA Dubai school-run window can absorb forty minutes each wayYounger students who need a supervised physical desk
Small group of two to fourA shared session on criteria common to several projectsLower per student, with the project goal unavoidably genericOne schedule has to suit every family in the groupUnderstanding the criteria, not fixing one project
Tuition centre classPremises-based group teaching on a fixed timetableUsually quoted per term or per month rather than per hourA fixed slot plus the journey, twice a weekSubject catch-up rather than project supervision
Independent university-student tutorA freelance tutor, often recently qualified45–150 at the budget end of published UAE ratesCheapest per hour; continuity and cover are the riskStudy-skills support under a parent's eye
Where we tutor

Every emirate answers to a different authority — here is what that changes

Where your child's school sits determines who approved its calendar, who inspects it, and who you would escalate a question to. The surveyed competitor pages for this query name none of these bodies except KHDA, and two emirates appear nowhere in that corpus at all.

Dubai

KHDA is responsible for enhancing and overseeing the quality of private education in the emirate, and publishes the mandatory-subjects guidance every licensed school follows. KHDA confirmed in May 2026 that private-school fees would not rise for 2026-27 under Dubai's economic incentives package, so tutoring is the variable cost in a Dubai MYP family's year.

Abu Dhabi

ADEK supervises the licensing and accreditation of private schools in the emirate, and it is named by none of the competitor pages surveyed for this query. Press reporting also describes ADEK ethics rules barring school staff from paid private tutoring of students at their own school — relevant the moment a supervisor offers extra paid hours.

Al Ain

Al Ain falls under ADEK with Abu Dhabi, so licensing and the staff-ethics position are identical, but the IB continuum is thinner here. Families more often need a specialist from outside their own school and outside their own city, which is the clearest case for a live-video session over a commute.

Sharjah

The Sharjah Private Education Authority regulates private education in the emirate and approves tuition fees, curricula, programmes, courses, activities and assessment methods. That is broader than inspection: a Sharjah school's published assessment calendar has already passed the authority, so a project deadline there is less negotiable than parents expect.

Ajman

Private schools in Ajman are supervised by the federal Ministry of Education rather than an emirate authority. IB continuum provision is limited, and a number of Ajman families keep an MYP child at a Sharjah or Dubai school and absorb the commute — which is why evening slots after 7pm are the norm here.

Ras Al Khaimah

Ras Al Khaimah's Department of Knowledge regulates private education in the emirate and, like Sharjah's authority, approves fees and curricula rather than only inspecting. Ras Al Khaimah returned zero mentions across every competitor page surveyed for this cluster, so published local detail is genuinely scarce.

Fujairah

Fujairah's private schools fall under the federal Ministry of Education. There is no emirate-level education authority to put a calendar query to, and MYP provision on the east coast is narrow, so most Fujairah families working on a project are pairing their school with a specialist joining over live video.

Umm Al Quwain

Umm Al Quwain is also supervised by the Ministry of Education and is the smallest private-school market in the country. Like Fujairah, it carries no MYP-specific tutoring content anywhere in the local search results, which is a gap worth naming rather than papering over with generic copy.

School ecosystem

IB and Cambridge school communities we support in the UAE

Dubai

Dubai holds the densest IB continuum provision in the country, and most MYP 5 cohorts here run the project between October and March. Programme status changes year to year, so check the IB's own programme list and KHDA's school listing for any school below before you assume it runs the MYP rather than the DP alone.

  • Dubai International Academy – Emirates Hills
  • Dubai International Academy – Al Barsha
  • GEMS World Academy – Dubai
  • Uptown International School
  • Dwight School Dubai
  • Greenfield International School
  • Universal American School Dubai

Abu Dhabi and Al Ain

Abu Dhabi's IB schools sit under ADEK, and several run the DP without the MYP, which matters because a Year 11 student in a non-MYP school has no Personal Project to submit at all. Confirm the programme before buying project support — we have had families book it for a child sitting IGCSEs.

  • GEMS World Academy – Abu Dhabi
  • Raha International School
  • Abu Dhabi International School
  • The American Community School of Abu Dhabi
  • Cranleigh Abu Dhabi

Sharjah, Ajman and the northern emirates

Provision thins quickly north of Dubai, and the regulator changes twice across this group: SPEA in Sharjah, the Department of Knowledge in Ras Al Khaimah, and the Ministry of Education in Ajman. The schools below include both IB settings and the alternatives families weigh against them locally.

  • Victoria International School of Sharjah
  • Ajman Academy
  • RAK Academy
  • Ras Al Khaimah English Speaking School
  • Sharjah English School

Schools are named here as system context only; no affiliation, endorsement or commercial relationship with any school or school group is implied, and programme status should be verified on the school's own site and the IB programme list.

How matching works

From first enquiry to a tutor who fits

  1. 01

    Tell us the school, the emirate and the report deadline

    The three facts that shape everything: which school, which regulator it answers to, and the date the report is due. We also ask which MYP year your child is in, because a Year 11 student at a school that switched to IGCSE at Year 10 has no project to submit and should not be buying support for one.

  2. 02

    A free trial lesson with the goal and criteria on screen

    The first session is free and it is diagnostic. The student brings the learning goal, the success criteria and the process journal as they currently stand. By the end of the hour you know which criterion is actually weak, roughly how many hours it needs, and whether the deadline you are working to is realistic.

  3. 03

    A plan mapped to your school's own milestone dates

    We lay the school's published dates for the three recorded meetings and the report deadline over the project, then work backwards. That produces the session pattern — weekly through the autumn, blocks before each meeting, concentrated in the final six weeks — rather than a generic weekly slot that peaks at the wrong time.

  4. 04

    Weekly one-to-one sessions in Gulf Standard Time

    Lessons run over live video at a time that survives a UAE school week, around the mandatory-subject periods that cannot move. Each session ends with the student writing their own journal entry while the call is still open, so the evidence for criterion B accumulates as the work happens rather than being reconstructed in March.

  5. 05

    A review before each recorded supervisor meeting

    Before every one of the three documented meetings, the tutor reads the journal, lists the questions a supervisor is likely to ask, and rehearses the answers. The student walks in able to account for their own decisions, which is the point of the meeting, and the academic integrity form is checked for anything unsigned.

  6. 06

    Report-stage review, then an honest stop

    In the final weeks the work is criterion C and the format limit. The tutor reads the student's draft back with questions attached; the student makes every change. When the report is submitted the project work ends, and any continuing support moves to the subject groups your child carries into DP1 or Year 12.

Why families choose us

What UAE parents tell us matters most

The criteria taught as strands, not as a summary

Most project support explains that there are three criteria. We teach the seven strands behind them, because that is the level at which marks are awarded and lost. A student who can name what criterion A strand ii asks for can check their own work against it, which is the only version of this that keeps working after the sessions stop.

Built around the UAE school system, not around a generic IB page

Which emirate your school sits in changes who approved its calendar, how much a deadline can move, and who at the school may legally be paid to coach your child. We ask those questions before quoting a plan, and we name the regulators — including ADEK and SPEA, which almost nothing else in these search results mentions at all.

An academic-honesty line we state in writing

Sessions produce teaching, questions and feedback on the student's own work. No text is supplied, no part of a product is built, no journal entry is composed for them. We say this on the page and we hold it in the session, because the sites selling finished coursework in this market are exposing the student, not themselves.

Chosen by subject group, not by driving distance

A Design project and a Sciences project need different specialists. Online delivery means the pool is the whole network rather than whoever lives twenty minutes from your address, which matters most in Al Ain, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah, where IB provision is thin and local subject specialists are genuinely scarce.

Market rates published, attributed and dated

The AED bands on this page are surveyed from other providers' published pages in October 2026 and labelled as such. Three of six competitor pages reviewed publish no price at all and two quote US dollars. Knowing the market before you talk to anyone is worth more than a discount, and the first lesson with us is free.

Honest about availability

If no UAE-based specialist is free for a particular MYP subject group, we say so and offer the alternative — a specialist from our wider network joining the same live-video session — rather than taking the booking and hoping. Nothing in these search results discloses a coverage limit, and a disclosed limit is more useful than a silent one.

Student and parent reviews

What students and parents say about working with IB Gram

Practical feedback on tutor fit, revision structure and communication from IB and IGCSE families we have taught.

“Every session has been a positive learning experience. The students are progressing well, becoming more confident, and showing a genuine interest in learning.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The students have developed a much better understanding of the concepts through regular practice and guidance. Their confidence and participation have improved noticeably.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“Watching the students progress from one session to the next has been very satisfying. They are learning with confidence and showing genuine interest.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The sessions provide a good balance of explanation, practice, and feedback. Students are steadily building their skills and confidence.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The students are showing a positive attitude toward learning and are becoming more independent with each session. The progress has been very encouraging.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“Personalized support and regular practice have helped the students make excellent progress. Their confidence has improved significantly over time.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The learning process has been smooth and engaging. Students are asking better questions, understanding concepts more clearly, and improving consistently.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“It is rewarding to see students become more confident in their abilities. The sessions are productive, engaging, and focused on meaningful learning”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The students are making steady progress and developing a stronger foundation. Consistent practice and individual attention have helped a lot.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“I have seen noticeable improvement in the students' understanding and participation. Their enthusiasm for learning is truly encouraging.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“A supportive learning environment makes a big difference. The students are responding well to personalized guidance and regular feedback.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The overall learning journey has been very positive. Students are becoming more confident, curious, and comfortable with new concepts.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The students have shown great progress with regular practice and guidance. It is wonderful to see their confidence grow with every session.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“It has been a rewarding experience working with the students. Their confidence and understanding have improved significantly through consistent guidance, practice, and personalized attention.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“The learning experience has been wonderful. The students are engaged, confident, and showing consistent improvement. The teaching approach is supportive, clear, and focused on building strong fundamentals.”

Priya Vivek

Gurugram

“We were stuck on Math AA HL paper 3 sample questions. The matched tutor walked through the syllabus depth and IA strategy, and our daughter's confidence shifted in three weeks.”

Priya R.

Gurugram

“Physics HL felt scary before mocks. The tutor mapped my weak topics and gave a realistic command-term plan. Mocks went up by two grade boundaries.”

Aarav K.

DLF Phase 5

“We wanted Economics HL support that matched the actual paper command terms. IB Gram matched us within a day with a specialist who understood our school's IA timeline.”

Sneha M.

Sector 57

“Cambridge IGCSE Chemistry past-paper practice made the difference. The tutor was honest about pace and progress, and the lesson notes were structured.”

Reema S.

Sushant Lok

Questions parents ask

IB and IGCSE tutoring in the UAE: your questions answered

What is the MYP Personal Project and which school year does it fall in?+

It is an independent project completed in the final year of the Middle Years Programme, MYP 5 — Year 11 in most British-system UAE schools and Grade 10 in most American-system ones. The student chooses a learning goal rooted in a personal interest, creates a product, builds success criteria for it, keeps a process journal, meets a supervisor three recorded times and submits a report. The school assesses that report against three criteria worth eight marks each and reports a 1–7 grade. There is no external examination paper, which is why the deadline tends to be underestimated until the spring term.

Which criteria is the Personal Project marked against and how many marks does each carry?+

Three criteria, each marked out of eight, for 24 in total. Criterion A is Planning, carrying three strands: stating a learning goal and linking it to a personal interest, naming a product with appropriate success criteria, and presenting a clear detailed plan. Criterion B is Applying skills, with two strands on how Approaches to Learning skills served the goal and the product. Criterion C is Reflecting, with two strands on the impact of the work and the evaluation of the product against the stated criteria. The school converts the total into a 1–7 grade using the published project boundaries. Confirm the detail against your school's copy of the IB Projects guide.

How long can the report be, and does the bibliography count towards the limit?+

A written or electronic report runs 1,500 to 3,500 words. Oral formats such as a podcast and visual formats such as a film run 13 to 15 minutes. The bibliography and the appendices sit outside the limit, so citing properly and including journal extracts costs nothing in word count. If a student is over the limit the fix is structural rather than cosmetic: background sections no criterion asks for are the first to go, not individual adjectives. Check the current limits for your child's cohort with the MYP coordinator, since schools hold the authoritative version of the guide.

What is the process journal actually meant to contain?+

Dated evidence of thinking as it happened: decisions and why they were made, sources consulted, obstacles hit, skills practised, and what changed as a result. It is not a diary of hours worked and it is not written up at the end. Criterion B awards marks for how Approaches to Learning skills were applied, and that evidence has to exist in the journal before it can appear in the report. A journal with four entries, three of them from the opening weeks, is the most common reason a strong product still produces a mid-range grade. Extracts from it go into the report's appendices.

What does the MYP academic integrity form actually require?+

It records that the project developed under proper supervision. The student and the supervisor sign it, and it documents the supervisor meetings — a minimum of three across the project. Its purpose is evidential: a school facing a question about whether work is a student's own can point to a dated journal and a signed record of meetings. A project that appears fully formed late in the year with an unsigned form and a thin journal has no such trail. Ask your child's coordinator for the school's own version of the form at the start of the year rather than discovering it in February.

Where does a tutor's help stop and malpractice begin on this project?+

A tutor may explain what a criterion strand asks for, point to where a draft does not yet answer it, teach the skill a product needs, and ask the question that exposes a gap. A tutor may not supply sentences, restructure a draft on the student's behalf, build any part of the product, choose the journal extracts, or compose journal entries. The working test: if a session ends with something on the page the student could not explain to their supervisor unprompted, the line has been crossed. An authentication failure lands on the student's result, not on whoever sold the help.

Does my child's project get moderated by the IB or only marked inside the school?+

The school marks it and standardises across supervisors so that grading is consistent. Where a school registers candidates for the IB MYP certificate, the personal project is submitted to the IB for moderation as part of that registration. Many UAE schools run the MYP without registering for the certificate, in which case the grade stays internal and appears on the school report only. Which applies to your child is a question for the MYP coordinator, and it is worth asking, because it affects how early the school's internal deadline sits before the grade is published.

My child's school is in Abu Dhabi under ADEK — does the regulator set the project deadline?+

No. The project deadline is set by the school's MYP coordinator, not by ADEK. What ADEK controls is the licensing and accreditation of the school itself, and press reporting also describes ADEK professional-ethics rules prohibiting private and charter school staff from paid private tutoring of students enrolled at their own school. That second point is the one that affects a project term directly: if a supervisor offers paid extra hours, check the position first. Verify the current wording against ADEK's own policy document rather than relying on a press summary, including this one.

Do Arabic, Islamic Education and Social Studies continue through the project term?+

Yes. Private schools in the UAE must teach Arabic language, social studies and Islamic studies regardless of the international curriculum they are licensed for. KHDA calculates the weekly requirement on a 40-minute lesson unit and advises at least 25 minutes for any mandatory-subject lesson, and schools must run separate classes for Arab and non-Arab students in Arabic as a first language, Islamic Education and Social Studies — combined classes are strictly prohibited. Those periods are not spare capacity for project work. Plan the project around them, and expect assessment weeks in those subjects to collide with at least one milestone.

Will a UAE university accept the MYP on its own, or does my child need the Diploma?+

The MYP is not a school-leaving qualification, so it is not what a university admits on. Admission and Ministry of Education equivalency both work from the end-of-secondary certificate: the IB Diploma, A-Levels, an American high school diploma with the required test scores, and so on. The Personal Project can sit on an application as evidence of independent research, which some readers value and none require. The decision that matters in MYP 5 is which pathway your child continues into, because that determines the equivalency route. Check current requirements on moe.gov.ae rather than on any tutoring site.

Does a tutor we pay for project support need a UAE permit, and what should it say?+

Yes. Individuals giving private lessons in the UAE need the MoHRE private tuition 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. The permit carries a code of conduct that bars serving students affiliated with the tutor's own school. Tutoring without one attracts fines and penalties under the applicable laws, though no fine schedule is published, so treat any specific amount you see quoted online as unverified.

Can we pay our child's own school supervisor for extra project hours?+

Be careful. The MoHRE private tuition work permit's code of conduct bars a permit holder from serving students affiliated with their own school, and press reporting describes ADEK rules prohibiting Abu Dhabi private and charter school staff from paid private tutoring of students enrolled where they teach. Beyond the regulatory position there is an assessment problem: the supervisor marks the project, so paid coaching from the same person compromises the judgement the school relies on. Support from outside the school keeps the marking clean and the paper trail simple. Verify the current rules with the school and with ADEK.

What does Personal Project support cost an hour in the UAE market?+

Rates surveyed from published UAE provider pages in October 2026 run roughly AED 45–150 an hour for budget and university-student tutoring online, AED 150–300 for a qualified subject tutor online, AED 180–500 for an in-home visit with travel included, AED 200–450 and above where IB specialism is required, and AED 500–650 or more at the premium end. Monthly packages seen included about AED 799 for eight online sessions. Those are other providers' figures, dated and attributed, rather than our price list. Our first lesson is free, and the plan is quoted after that diagnostic session.

Our report deadline falls just after Ramadan — how do families plan around that?+

Shorten the school day, and the work that gets displaced is always the independent work. Treat the Ramadan weeks as reflection and report time rather than product-building time, because reduced hours and shifted energy suit reading a draft better than running an experiment or filming. Sessions can move to post-Iftar slots, and in Gulf Standard Time that is straightforward for an online lesson. The practical move is to pull the product completion date forward into January so that the final stretch is criterion C work, which is lower-intensity and far more forgiving of a disrupted timetable.

The product is behind schedule with six weeks to the report. Is it salvageable?+

Usually, but not by building faster. Marks come from the report, and the report is assessed on planning, skill application and reflection rather than on how impressive the product is. With six weeks left the priority is a product complete enough to evaluate against the stated success criteria, then a report that accounts honestly for what was planned, what was applied and what the student learned. A scaled-down product evaluated rigorously scores better than an ambitious one abandoned mid-build with nothing to reflect on. Scope reduction is a legitimate decision and should be recorded in the journal.

Does the Personal Project make the Diploma Programme Extended Essay easier?+

It makes the machinery familiar. Both are single long independent pieces with an allocated supervisor, recorded reflection sessions and an integrity declaration, so a student who has kept a real process journal already knows what reflection evidence looks like and why dated entries matter. The content demand is different: the Extended Essay is a 4,000-word academic research piece within a DP subject, and it is marked against its own criteria rather than the project's three. Students who struggled with criterion A planning in MYP 5 are the ones who need early Extended Essay support in DP1.

Who covers a Personal Project in a subject area no UAE-based tutor lists?+

We tell you, and then we offer the alternative rather than taking the booking regardless. If no UAE-based specialist is free for a particular MYP subject group — Design and the Arts are the usual pinch points — a specialist from our wider network joins the same live-video session instead, scheduled in Gulf Standard Time so nothing about your week changes. Nothing else in these search results discloses a coverage limit at all, and several providers route UAE families to numbers outside the country without saying so. A stated limit is more useful than a silent one.

Reading

Guides for the UAE families

Longer reads on fees, exam calendars, school choice and the rules that apply in the UAE.

University admission with an IB Diploma: the subject choices that decide your options
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University admission with an IB Diploma: the subject choices that decide your options

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Switching From CBSE to IB in Dubai: What Actually Changes, Subject by Subject
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Switching From CBSE to IB in Dubai: What Actually Changes, Subject by Subject

The CBSE-to-IB gap is not difficulty, it is task type. Entry points ranked by risk, the maths placement that constrains the Diploma, and why the first Internal Assessment decides the year.

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A Ramadan Study Schedule for IB Students in the UAE That Actually Works
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The UAE Private Tutor Work Permit, Explained for Parents and Tutors
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The UAE Private Tutor Work Permit, Explained for Parents and Tutors

Private tutoring in the UAE needs a MoHRE work permit — free, two years, created by Ministerial Resolution 710 of 2023. What it covers, who qualifies, and how a parent verifies it.

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Moving to Dubai With IB Children: The Sequence That Keeps the Diploma Intact

The IB programme travels with you; the regulator, the compulsory subjects and the school run do not. A relocation sequence for PYP, MYP and DP families, in the order decisions must be taken.

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MoE Equivalency for IGCSE Students: How to Count Your Five Subjects Properly
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MoE Equivalency for IGCSE Students: How to Count Your Five Subjects Properly

The UAE five-subject equivalency rule, counted slowly with worked student ledgers: which subjects are excluded, what the grade floor means, and the last moment to fix a shortfall.

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Flag of the UAE

Start with the deadline, not with the search

Find the date your child's report is due, work backwards to when the product has to be finished and when the plan has to be real, and you will know immediately whether this is a planning job or a triage job. Bring that date, the current learning goal and the process journal as it stands to a free trial lesson, and we will tell you which criterion is actually weak and roughly how many hours it needs. Lessons are one-to-one over live video in Gulf Standard Time, scheduled around your school's calendar. If no specialist in your subject group is free, we will say so.