From the Mother Tongue papers on 2 June to the last written paper on 27 November, the verified A-Level calendar, plus how the H1, H2 and H3 structure actually works.
By Marcus Toh · 2026-07-28
The SEAB A-Level timetable, updated as at 13 February 2026, stretches the exam across six months. Mother Tongue written papers opened the season on 2 June, MTL orals run from 8 July to 25 September, and science practicals are spread across ten days between 13 July and 7 October. Then November arrives, and nearly everything else happens inside four weeks.
| Subject | Paper dates |
|---|---|
| General Paper (8881) | 2 November and 4 November |
| H2 Mathematics (9758) | 3 November and 6 November |
| H1 Mathematics (8865) | 3 November |
| Knowledge and Inquiry (9759) | 3 November and 6 November |
| Economics (H1 8843 / H2 9570) | 5 November, H2 Paper 2 on 16 November |
| H2 Chemistry (9729) | 10, 12 and 23 November |
| H2 Physics (9749) | 13, 17 and 27 November |
| H2 Biology (9744) | 18, 20 and 26 November |
| H2 History (9174) / H2 Geography (9173) | 17 and 19 November / 23 and 25 November |
| H2 Literature in English (9539) | 4 and 11 November |
The A-Level runs on curriculum units. Per JC published guidance, students carry 10 to 12 units: H1 General Paper and H1 Mother Tongue at one unit each, plus four content subjects, where an H2 subject counts 2 units and an H1 counts 1.
H2 is the full depth version of a subject, H1 covers less content in the same spirit, and H3 is a stretch layer offered in JC2 alongside the H2 of the same subject, for students who apply and qualify.
Project Work sits alongside all of this as coursework: it has no November paper on the timetable because it is assessed through the year, which we explain here. The full subject choosing logic, including the contrasting subject rule, is in our subject combination guide, and results follow in late February, mapped here.
Look at the November block honestly and you see the A-Level's real test: five to seven papers landing inside four weeks, after a season that started in June. Nobody crams their way through that, the students who survive November built their consistency in JC1, and the ones who suffer are usually not the weakest students but the latest starters.
So if your child is in JC1 now, the timetable above is their most useful revision tool: print it, plan backwards from their own subjects' dates, and treat the October practicals and prelims as the last checkpoint, not the starting gun. And keep the units in perspective, because three H2s and the H1s is a heavy, adult sized load, and a student managing it deserves to hear that from their parents more often than they do.
H1 Mother Tongue written papers ran on 2 June 2026, with the B syllabus papers the same day, and MTL orals run across windows from 8 July to 25 September, so a JC student's exam season genuinely starts in June of JC2, months before the November block.
The timetable spreads practical assessment across ten days between 13 July and 7 October 2026, per subject schedules, which is why H2 science students feel the season earlier than their arts classmates.
The season closes on 27 November 2026, when H2 and H1 Physics sit Paper 1, four days after the H2 Chemistry and Geography papers on 23 November, so a physics student's exam year ends latest of all.