Your child came through Year 12 fine. Then Year 13 starts, and suddenly the chemistry grade dips. New content lands every week, and the topics from last year sit there, half forgotten. Many parents at schools such as Dubai College, Jumeirah College and Dubai English Speaking College see the same thing at this stage. A good A Level chemistry tutor can steady it. This guide explains how.
On this page
Why the grade dips when Year 13 starts
How a tutor steadies the step up
Why more revision hours are not the answer
What the first lesson looks like
Meet some of our A Level chemistry tutors
Worth reading next
Frequently asked questions
Find your child an A Level chemistry tutor
Oxbridge-educated tutors, based in the UK, teaching online across Dubai
Why the grade dips when Year 13 starts
Here is what usually happens. Year 12 tests mostly cover year 1 content, so your child revises year 1 and does well. Then Year 13 begins, and the course piles year 2 on top: harder organic chemistry, harder calculations, longer questions that mix both years together. Meanwhile, the year 1 topics they have not touched since the summer start to fade. Your child is working just as hard as before, but the ground keeps moving underneath them. That is why the grade dips, and it is why this is the most common point for Dubai families to look for an A Level chemistry tutor.
The fix is not more hours. It is keeping both years alive at once. That is hard to do alone. A tutor checks what has faded and rebuilds it before the exams get close.
The honest version
Year 13 chemistry piles new content on top of fading old content. A tutor keeps both years alive at once, so the exam does not catch your child out.
How a tutor steadies the step up
Our tutors teach to your child’s exact exam board and work through the course in a planned order, not just whatever came up at school that week. They set short practice between sessions and send a written note after each one, so you can see what was covered and what comes next. Here is what that looks like with real students, with the details changed so no child can be identified.
The student whose year 2 organic chemistry had faded
One girl we will call Hana did well in her Year 12 mocks. However, those mocks only tested year 1 content, so that was all she had revised. When school moved deep into year 2 organic chemistry, she found she could not recall the reactions and mechanisms she had met months before. Her tutor rebuilt them week by week, linking each new reaction to one she already knew, and opened every lesson with a quick recall check on older topics. Within a term, the organic questions stopped being the part of the paper she feared.
The student losing marks on the same two topics
A boy we will call Tomas looked strong on paper. His calculations were solid and acids gave him no trouble. Yet the same two topics kept costing him marks: shapes of molecules and electronegativity. His tutor went through his marked papers, spotted the pattern, and gave those two topics their own sessions before mixing them back into normal practice. As a result, a weakness he had carried for a year closed in a few weeks, and his grade improved with it.
Has Year 13 knocked your child’s confidence?
A tutor can find the faded topics and rebuild them before the exams arrive.
The student whose calculations fell apart
A third student, we will call her Noor, could balance any equation you gave her. The trouble started when a calculation needed several steps, especially empirical formula and percentage yield questions. So her tutor taught her a fixed layout: write down what the question gives you, convert to moles, follow the ratio, one line per step. Then they practised it under time pressure until it held. By her next school test, the multi-step questions had gone from her weakest area to reliable marks.
Why more revision hours are not the answer
When the grade dips, most students respond by rereading their notes for longer. It rarely works, because the problem is not effort. The problem is that nobody has told them which topics have faded and which habits are costing marks. They revise what feels familiar and avoid what does not, which is the exact opposite of what they need.
This is what an A Level chemistry tutor gives that a revision guide cannot. They look at your child’s own marked work, find the specific knowledge gaps, and aim every session at them. If you are weighing up support across subjects, our guide to A Level tutoring in Dubai covers the wider picture for parents.
What the first lesson looks like
The first session is about finding out where your child really stands, because in Year 13 that is often different from where their Year 12 result suggests. There is no lecture and no wasted time.
In practice it covers three things. First, the tutor looks at a recent test or marked paper to see which topics are solid and which have faded. Next, they pin down the main issue, whether that is year 2 content, multi-step calculations, or exam technique. Then they agree a plan with your child, so everyone knows exactly what the coming weeks will cover and why.
Meet some of our A Level chemistry tutors
Every A Level chemistry tutor below studied at Oxford or Cambridge and teaches the subject every week. All are based in the UK and teach online, with times that fit the Dubai school day. Here are three to introduce.
Jessica
Jessica is in her fourth year of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and achieved four A*s at A Level, including Chemistry. She is one of our most experienced tutors, with hundreds of hours taught. She is especially good at keeping year 1 topics alive alongside year 2 content, so nothing has faded by the time the real exams arrive.
Gonzalo
Gonzalo graduated from the University of Oxford with a First in Chemistry, finishing on 80 percent overall, and is starting a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at Cambridge. He knows the harder end of the A Level course inside out, and he is particularly strong at making organic mechanisms make sense rather than feel like a list to memorise.
Maisie
Maisie is a final-year Molecular Biochemistry student at Oxford with First-Class marks throughout and an A* in A Level Chemistry. She holds a Gold Certificate in the Senior Chemistry Olympiad. She is skilled at breaking multi-step calculations into a clear method a student can repeat under exam pressure.
Steady the step up before the exams arrive
If Year 13 has knocked your child’s chemistry grade, the ability has not gone anywhere. The right tutor finds what has faded, rebuilds it, and keeps it there. Reach out, and we will match your child with an A Level chemistry tutor who fits their exam board and their goals.
Find an A Level Chemistry Tutor in Dubai
KEEP BOTH YEARS OF THE COURSE ALIVE
Our Oxbridge-educated tutors are based in the UK and teach online across Dubai. They rebuild the faded topics and turn Year 13 into a stronger grade.
Worth reading next
If this was useful, these guides go deeper on the same subject. One covers what an A looks like in practice. Another lists the costliest exam mistakes, and the last shows how to get real value from past papers.
- How to get an A in A Level Chemistry
- The most common A Level Chemistry exam mistakes
- Using A Level Chemistry past papers the right way
Frequently asked questions
