Cambridge IGCSE November 2026 timetable for the Gulf

Which Cambridge timetable applies in your country

Cambridge splits the world into six administrative zones and prints a separate timetable for each. Its own zone finder puts Dubai and Muscat in Zone 4, and Riyadh, Doha, Kuwait City and Manama in Zone 3. Cambridge is blunt about the risk: it will not accept responsibility for a candidate who misses an exam because someone read the wrong zone's timetable.

For the November 2026 series both zones share most dates, but not all of the detail. In Zone 4, IGCSE Mathematics (0580) Papers 2 and 4 are morning exams and the variant is 22 and 42. In Zone 3 the same papers are afternoon exams, variant 21 and 41. The variant number matters later, because grade thresholds are published per variant. A few papers move by days: English as a Second Language (0510) Paper 1 is on Tuesday 29 September in Zone 4 but Monday 5 October in Zone 3.

The tables below are taken from Cambridge's final November 2026 timetables (Version 1, April 2026). Today, 6 October 2026, the series is already under way: the first papers were sat on 28 September.

Main IGCSE papers, Zone 4 (UAE and Oman)

Extended-tier components shown. Core-tier papers for the same syllabus are on the same day and session.

Source: Cambridge Final Exam Timetable November 2026, Administrative zone 4, checked 6 October 2026. ATP = Alternative to Practical, MCQ = multiple choice.

What changes in Zone 3 (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain)

Source: Cambridge Final Exam Timetable November 2026, Administrative zone 3, checked 6 October 2026.

November 2026 series: the dates around the exams

Sources: Cambridge key dates for the November 2026 series (international) and the Cambridge results page, checked 6 October 2026.

What to do in the weeks before each paper

1. Ask the school for the candidate's statement of entry and check every component code against the table for your zone. The last two digits tell you the variant.
2. Write each date, session and paper length on one page and stick it somewhere visible. Mark any day with two papers.
3. Sit at least one full past paper per component under timed conditions in the fortnight before it, using the same variant number where one exists.
4. Mark it with the official mark scheme, then spend the next session only on the questions that lost marks.
5. For multiple-choice papers at the end of the series (Physics on 5 November, Chemistry on 12 November, Biology on 10 November), keep science revision going after the theory papers are done.
6. Check Cambridge's timetable page again before each week: Cambridge publishes any change to the final timetable there.

How one-to-one lessons help during an exam series

In the middle of a series, a tutor's job is narrow and practical. They work through the paper your child sits next, using past papers of the same variant where they exist, and mark them against Cambridge's mark scheme. Most of the gain comes from fixing repeat mistakes: misread command words, missing units, working that skips the step that earns the method mark.

Our lessons are 60 minutes, one to one, in LiveTutor's online classroom with a shared whiteboard, so a lesson can be booked between papers rather than on a fixed weekly slot during the series.