Reading, writing, spelling and grammar from Prep, building to text response and persuasive writing in secondary, taught by tutors who mark the way teachers mark. Live online from Melbourne, in Dubai time.
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Australian families in Dubai most often come to us for English, because it is the subject where curriculum differences show up fastest. Here is how our online English tutoring (Prep–Year 10) works from Dubai: the teaching approach, the curriculum topics, local session times, A$ pricing and answers to common questions.
Dubai has one of the largest Australian expatriate communities outside the English-speaking world, spread across Jumeirah, Dubai Marina, Arabian Ranches and the Springs, and most families are on two- to five-year contracts in aviation, construction, finance, hospitality or education.
English is harder to tutor well than maths because the gaps are less visible. A child can read fluently and still not comprehend; a student can write a long essay that never actually answers the question. Our free Skills Check for English looks separately at comprehension, spelling and phonics, grammar and writing, so the tutor knows on day one whether the problem is decoding, understanding, expressing or organising.
In the early years (Prep to Year 2) our focus is systematic phonics and fluency: sound-letter knowledge, blending, high-frequency words and reading aloud with expression. From Year 3 the balance shifts to comprehension and writing: finding evidence in a text, inferring, summarising, and writing paragraphs with a clear topic sentence. By Years 5 and 6 we are working on structured persuasive and narrative writing, the two genres NAPLAN assesses, and on the vocabulary and sentence variety that separate a good piece from an average one.
In secondary English the Victorian Curriculum expects students to analyse how authors construct meaning and how writers build an argument. That is a big jump from primary, and many Year 7 and 8 students we meet are still retelling the plot rather than analysing it. Our tutors teach a simple, explicit structure for analytical paragraphs (point, evidence, explanation of the author's technique, link back to the question), then practise it on the actual texts the school has set. Persuasive writing gets the same treatment: contention, arguments, evidence, rebuttal and language techniques.
Sessions are built around writing, not just talking about writing. A typical hour includes a short comprehension or vocabulary task, a focused teaching point (for example, embedding quotations, or using a semicolon correctly), a piece of writing done in the session, and immediate marking against the criteria a teacher would use. Students keep a running list of their own recurring errors, which shrinks over the term.
For students who speak another language at home, or who read well below their year level, we slow down and go back to the mechanics: sentence structure, tense, articles and prepositions, and lots of guided reading. For strong students we extend into scholarship-style writing and Year 10 texts that lead into VCE. Whichever end your child is at, you get a progress note after every session with a specific next step.
Start the free Skills Check → Book a free video consultation Email info@rhztutoring.com.au
These are the topics our English tutors cover, by year level, drawn from the curriculum-aligned question banks that power the free Skills Check.
Keeping pace with Australian year levels is the first thing Dubai families ask about. International curricula are excellent but they are not the Australian one: topics come in a different order, algebra starts earlier or later, and the persuasive and analytical writing that Australian schools assess from Year 3 is often not taught at all. Our tutors are Victorian-curriculum trained and plan every session from the Australian year level your child will step back into.
The second reason is the return. A family that comes back to Australia for Year 9 or Year 10 is walking into the run-up to VCE in Victoria or the HSC in New South Wales, and a family aiming at a selective-entry school (the Victorian selective-entry exam is sat in Year 8; New South Wales tests in Year 6) needs a child who is a year ahead, not a year behind. We prepare overseas students for all of that from Dubai, including scholarship and selective-entry preparation on the same timeline as our Melbourne students.
Third: there is no NAPLAN in Dubai. Australian children sit NAPLAN in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, and overseas families lose that benchmark completely. The free Skills Check is the closest thing to it: an online diagnostic pitched at the top of the Australian year level, built on a bank of 5,900 questions from Prep to Year 12, with a topic-by-topic report the same day. Most overseas families use it annually and before any return.
Dubai parents tell us the same thing: the school is excellent, but it is a British or IB school, and nobody there is thinking about what Year 9 back in Melbourne or Sydney will expect.
Dubai families we tutor use international schools including Dubai College, Jumeirah College, GEMS Wellington International School and Dubai British School. None of these runs an Australian program, which is precisely why weekly Australian-curriculum tutoring matters for a family that intends to come home.
A 9pm session in Melbourne is 3pm in Dubai (2pm once Melbourne moves to daylight saving), because Dubai is 6 hours behind Melbourne while Melbourne is on AEST and 7 hours behind Melbourne on AEDT. Dubai is on Gulf Standard Time, UTC+4. Melbourne is on AEST (UTC+10) until 3 October 2026 and AEDT (UTC+11) from 4 October 2026 to the first Sunday in April. The slots below are the ones Dubai families most often book, with the child's local time in both Melbourne seasons.
| Melbourne slot | Dubai time (Melbourne on AEST) | Dubai time (Melbourne on AEDT) |
|---|---|---|
| Weekday 2pm (Melbourne) | 8am | 7am |
| Weekday 9pm (Melbourne) | 3pm | 2pm |
| Weekday 10pm (Melbourne) | 4pm | 3pm |
| Saturday 3pm (Melbourne) | 9am | 8am |
Because Dubai is well behind Melbourne, weekday sessions fall in the Melbourne evening; weekend-morning slots (Melbourne afternoon) are popular with Dubai families. Tell us the days and times that suit your child and we will match a tutor to them.
The Skills Check is free, online, and works from Dubai exactly as it does from Truganina. Your child does 10 to 15 minutes of questions pitched at the top of their Australian year level, drawn from a 5,900-question bank covering Prep to Year 12, and you receive a topic-by-topic report the same day. A tutor then calls or video-calls you for a free consultation to walk through it. Families overseas repeat it every year as their substitute for NAPLAN and once more before any move home.
There is no card and no commitment. If the result shows your child is on track, we will say so; if it shows a gap, we will tell you exactly which topics and suggest a plan.
One-to-one online tutoring is A$35–A$45 an hour by year level; small online groups of up to four are from A$25 an hour. Prices are the same as for families in Melbourne; there is no international surcharge. Plans are monthly, you choose the number of sessions a week, and you can pause or cancel any time, which matters for families in Dubai who travel over the northern summer.
Payment is in Australian dollars and international Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards are accepted; your bank converts at its own rate. The Skills Check and the consultation are free.
Our Australian-curriculum practice papers are sold as instant PDF downloads and work anywhere in the world: buy from Dubai, print at home, and mark against the included answers. They cover primary maths and English, Years 7 to 10 maths, NAPLAN-style reading, writing and numeracy for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, and VCE topic tests. Many Dubai families use them alongside tutoring, or on their own between Skills Checks.
Browse all practice papers (instant PDF) →
Dubai is 6 hours behind Melbourne while Melbourne is on AEST and 7 hours behind Melbourne on AEDT. A 9pm weekday session in Melbourne is 3pm in Dubai (2pm during Melbourne daylight saving). We schedule in your local time, confirm the Melbourne equivalent in writing, and adjust automatically when either side changes clocks.
Both. The Victorian Curriculum is Victoria's implementation of the Australian Curriculum for Prep to Year 10, with the same content sequence, so a child in Dubai who is returning to any Australian state is covered. For Years 11 and 12 we tutor to the VCE study designs; ask us about HSC or other state courses and we will be honest about fit.
Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons Dubai families contact us. Australian schools place students by age and year level regardless of what an international school has covered, so we run a Skills Check as soon as the move is confirmed, focus on the Australian topics the current school has not covered, and hand the new school a clear picture of where the child sits.
Only through a registered VCE provider: a Victorian school, Virtual School Victoria, or an overseas school that offers the VCE. RHZ is not a VCE provider and cannot enrol students, but we tutor VCE subjects to students who are enrolled, and we prepare Year 10 students in Dubai who will start VCE on their return to Victoria.
Very. Reading and writing are related but separate skills, and writing has to be taught explicitly: how to plan, how to structure a paragraph, how to vary sentences, how to edit. Most of our English work with strong readers is on writing.
Yes. Bring the text and the essay topic and the tutor will work on that. We deliberately practise analysis on the school's set text so the improvement shows up in the next assessment.
Start the free English Skills Check from Dubai → Book a free video consultation Email info@rhztutoring.com.au
Other subjects for Dubai students: Maths online in Dubai · VCE online in Dubai · All online tutoring for Dubai
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More: How our online tutoring works (Australia) · Practice papers (instant PDF) · Free Skills Check · Tutoring in Melbourne's west
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