If you’ve sat A-Levels and GCSEs this year, it’s likely to have been a tense few months of waiting and hoping. There’s nothing worse than a deadline looming in the future and waiting for it to come closer, and it never seems to – until it’s right on top of you and it’s making you even more nervous than ever before. It might seem like centuries ago that you were sitting your final exams – certainly, it’s been a busy summer with a lot of other things going on (the Olympics, the global Covid-19 situation, and the heartbreaking defeat of the Euros… unless you’re Italian, that is)- and it’s likely you’re feeling a bit disconnected from the whole shebang, but with this deep sense of foreboding that never goes away.

On Tuesday, thousands of A-Level students up and down the country opened either an envelope or an email with what feels like their whole future inside it. A few days after, the same thing happened to GCSE students – and the same thing happened to university students last month too. It’s a rite of passage, and an important part of our educational careers – but nobody really focuses on what happens after all the fireworks have gone off and you’re standing there alone with a piece of paper and wondering what happens next.

We’ll start off with the obvious: some people are going to stay on in education. People who just finished their GCSEs might go on to study a BTec or A-Levels- or try their hand at the world of work. The people who have just finished their A-Levels or BTecs might go on to start university in September, or go down a more skills-based training route – and some of them might leave the education system altogether and go into the world of work. University graduates can stay on to get a few extra letters after their name as a postgraduate or doctoral candidate, or they can look for a career on the outside – but all of these are about looking forward. All of these are what happens when you’ve got the grades, and you’re ready to tackle a new challenge – but it’s also a time where many of us start looking back.

Come results day morning, you might be relieved, you might be celebrating, you might be feeling disappointed. But if you’re anything like us, you might have sat there with your results clutched in your hand feeling a little bit empty too. Studying for these qualifications has been a huge part of your day-to-day life and it’s odd to think that you’re entering a world where you don’t have to constantly tot up your coursework marks against what you reckon you’ve scored in the exam, or squeeze in a little bit of extra last-minute reading, or sit with your friends to talk about how you think the ideal answer to question 3B went. A huge change is on the horizon whether you’re heading into college, university, postgrad or work, and it’s difficult sometimes to get your head around the fact that things are going to be different. Sure, there’s new challenges, new friends to make, new thoughts to think – but what if you’re not ready to say goodbye to the old ones that have been a huge part of your life?

Getting your results often means that you’ll be saying goodbye to something. Many of us feel very safe in the high schools we’ve been in for five years, or the colleges where we made our firm friends and first bleached our fringe, or the universities where we took our first steps towards being independent. Having to abandon these scenarios where we’ve spent eight hours almost every weekday – that’s over 23% of your life that year – is likely to feel like a loss to us. And it’s understandable if you want to grieve it like a loss too – people cry when they move house all the time; people cry when their friends move away, people cry when they walk away from support structures and their day-to-day. And you’re kind of doing it all at once – it isn’t foolish or childish to turn around and suddenly realise that you’re going to miss school, or college, or university. It’s natural, but it’s often something that gets lost in the haze of ‘onward and upward’ and ‘bring on September!’ social media posts – nobody posts about how they’re going to miss eating cold tomato pasta whilst doing their art coursework over lunch, but it’s natural to miss it all the same.

It’s important to celebrate and look forward on results day. After all, you’ve done the exams, and you can’t go back (unless you’re re-sitting, that is). But it’s important to give yourself time to say goodbye to parts of your life that you’re not going to be able to revisit any more too. Whether this is sending a thank-you card to your teachers and lecturers, making sure you’ve swapped mobile numbers with the people you want to stay in touch with or taking a last tour around campus with your friends, it’s a big part of moving on. And things will be different from now on – there are some new things looming on the horizon, and that nervousness can compel a lot of young people feel very nostalgic for the spaces that they felt safe and secure in. This can be something that it’s difficult to explain to your parent or guardian too: surely you should be ecstatic, moving on up to bigger and better things, instead of getting upset about never seeing your SENCO again?

What we’re saying is it’s natural to feel some sadness when you open those results, even if they’re the perfect results for you and you’re very proud of what you’ve achieved. Goodbyes aren’t easy, and a lot of us feel very emotionally attached to the places, the people and the subjects that have been a huge part of our lives. Our educational experiences form us, and make us who we are to some extent – and most of us remember them our whole lives as a time when we were carefree and happy, even if we were consistently confused by Wuthering Heights or how an oxbow lake is formed. Some people might be very happy to move on – some people might have thought about nothing else for years and years – but for most of us, the celebrations of results day can be just a little bittersweet too.

This weekend, take some time out to say goodbye to an old chapter of your life – especially if you’re leaving education for the world outside, or moving away from familiar faces. Life in the 2020s looks set to be fast-paced and exciting and before you blink you could be miles away, years down the line with a whole set of new challenges and fresh things to think about. Looking back is a natural part of going forward, and if you’re feeling low or nervous about leaving what’s tried and tested, it’s a good idea to reach out to friends and family or even a charity like MIND.

And once again, from all of us here at SP - well done. You’re going to do just fine. ✨