The written and practical papers run from 5 October to 10 November 2026. Here's what's happening this week, the full schedule for the major subjects still ahead, and why pacing beats panic.
By Marcus Toh · Published
By today, 12 October 2026, most of the Science practical papers are already done. Chemistry's practical ran on 30 September, Physics on 5 October, Computing on 7 October, and the combined Science practicals on 8 October. What is left on the practical calendar is mostly Biology, which runs across four shifts on 13 October.
Today itself belongs to the smaller language papers. Spanish, German and Japanese sit Paper 1, French does the same, and Arabic as a Third Language, Bahasa Indonesia as a Third Language, Burmese and Thai all have written papers on 12 October too, according to SEAB's examination timetable.
From here the timetable runs almost without a break. English Language opens the stretch on 19 October, and the papers that decide most L1R5 combinations, Mathematics, the sciences, the humanities and the mother tongue languages, are packed into the four weeks after that:
| Date | Written papers |
|---|---|
| 19 October | English Language (Papers 1 and 2) |
| 20 October | Computing (Paper 1), Economics (Paper 2), Humanities Social Studies combined with Geography or History (Paper 2) |
| 21 October | Mathematics (Paper 1) |
| 22 October | Geography (Paper 1), History (Paper 1) |
| 23 October | Mathematics (Paper 2), Biotechnology, Design Studies |
| 26 October | Humanities Social Studies, all literature strands (Paper 1), Additional Mathematics (Paper 1) |
| 27 October | Geography (Paper 2), History (Paper 2), Literature in English (Paper 2), Combined Science (Paper 3), Chemistry (Paper 2) |
| 28 October | Additional Mathematics (Paper 2), Principles of Accounts (Paper 1) |
| 29 October | Literature in English (Paper 1), Combined Science (Paper 2), Physics (Paper 2) |
| 30 October | Combined Science (Paper 4), Biology (Paper 2), Principles of Accounts (Paper 2) |
| 2 November | Music, Drama, Design and Technology, Islamic Religious Knowledge and other elective papers |
| 3 November | Higher Chinese, Higher Malay, Higher Tamil, Malay, Tamil, Chinese and other mother tongue languages (Papers 1 and 2) |
| 4 November | Malay B, Tamil B, Chinese B, Economics (Paper 1) |
| 6 November | Chemistry (Paper 1), Physics (Paper 1) |
| 10 November | Combined Science (Paper 1), Biology (Paper 1) |
Counting everything from the Physics practical on 5 October to the last Combined Science and Biology papers on 10 November, the written and practical block runs just over 5 weeks.
Results are not far behind. Both SEAB and MOE list the 2026 GCE O-Level results as releasing tentatively between 13 and 15 January 2027, which is 95 days from today. What usually happens on results day is worth reading once the last paper is behind your child, not before.
The method that moved marks at prelims still works now: run timed papers against the Ten Year Series, mark them honestly, and correct the same recurring mistake before moving to the next topic. Podsee's prelims guide walks through how to run that routine, and it holds just as well across the exam weeks still ahead.
If a subject keeps tripping on the same command term or the same chapter, whether that's Combined Science or Additional Mathematics, a short burst of focused tuition can close the gap faster than solo revision in the time that's left. Bukit Timah maths tuition centres run trial lessons worth booking before the next paper, not after it.
A hard paper on 12 October does not decide your child's O-Level, and with the real block of major subjects still running from 19 October to 10 November, that is the one thing I need every parent to actually believe this week, not just nod along to.
In three years of tutoring I have watched the same split happen every exam season. The students who shake off one rough paper and walk straight into the next one are the ones treating each paper as its own event, no carry over, no post mortem until the whole block is done. The ones who struggle are the ones replaying yesterday's paper in their head during today's exam, and losing marks on a subject that had nothing to do with the one that actually went badly.
So this month, the job at home is smaller than it feels. Let each paper end when the bell goes, keep the routine boring and steady between papers, and save the full conversation about how everything went for after the last paper on 10 November, when there is finally something real to talk about. Your child has five weeks of papers ahead of them, not one, and that's the kinder way to look at it this week.
No. SEAB's registration window for the 2026 Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level year-end examinations ran from 7 April to 20 April 2026, and that window has already closed.
SEAB's table lists the Year-End Examination Entry Proof as due for issue by 25 June 2026, and candidates who had not received it by 26 June 2026 were told to contact SEAB directly.
Yes. SEAB's important dates table lists 1 September 2026 as the deadline for withdrawal for private candidates in this year's GCE-Level cycle.