Hilary Curtis, English and sociology teacher, Budehaven Community School in Cornwall

Hilary Curtis

No one tells you when you train to be a teacher how much, emotionally, you’ll engage with your students. But these are young people wanting to make their way out into the world and you feel really pivotal to their next move. If they don’t get the results they want, it just breaks your heart and you can’t help but feel quite personally accountable.

I never sleep the night before the results. As teachers, we’re judged on our performance, so part of my anxiety is my own sense of professional accountability, questioning whether I’ve delivered what my headteacher expects me to. But, most of all, there’s this feeling of so desperately wanting my students, who I’ve prepped and taught and supported for two years, to just nail it.

My happiest memory is of a dyslexic young man who did just that. When he found out his result, he picked me up in his arms and twirled me around in front of everyone, saying: “Oh my God, I couldn’t have done it without you, Miss.”

It’s such a nerve-racking and anxiety-inducing day. One minute, I’ll be shrieking and jumping up and down with celebrating students. The next, I’ll be in a quiet corner, comforting a devastated child who feels like nothing will be OK ever again.

I am always rooting for the students who have a difficult home life or don’t find academic work easy. When they do well, it’s exhilarating. You know you’ve helped to shape that young person’s life. That’s why most of us go into teaching. It’s the best moment of your career.

Vic Goddard, principal at Passmores Academy, Harlow, and star of Educating Essex

Vic Goddard

I’ll sleep badly for weeks before results day, especially if I know Ofsted will visit us within the next academic year and our results will be heavily scrutinised. In the past, it has made me quite ill. I’ll sit up thinking about different scenarios, wondering how my results will be treated publicly and the impact they will have on the school in general. Also, I still teach maths and the individual results of that class are really important to my sense of self-worth, both as a teacher and as a head. If I’m telling other people what to do, I want them to know I can do it too.

Once I get the actual results, my concerns become much more about the children again – which is obviously what I should have been thinking about all the time. I get angry with myself for worrying about anything else.

Every year there will be certain kids you really want to see get their results. Usually it’s the ones who have battled against the odds. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch them get their brown envelope. You try not to stare but you look for their reaction.

There are times kids work flat-out and still don’t get what they need. They’re the heartbreakers.

One boy I taught a few years ago needed to pass maths to do electrical engineering at college. His predictions meant it would be an outside chance, but he and I both did all we could. In the end, he was a few marks off a C grade. He was devastated. He cried, and I cried. I told him to come up to my office. I wrote him a letter for his college, saying how hard he’d worked and that his maths was good enough for the course, and to please put him on it. I even phoned the principal and said: “He was so close, can you give him a go?” And she agreed. We sent off his exam for remarking but they let him start anyway.

At the end of results day, I might crack open a cold beer. I’m still thinking about the children, wondering: what can I do to help them? There’s always a bit of leftover anxiety, hoping that the results they’ve got are what they need to take their next step in life. Then eventually I’ll disappear off home to fall asleep on the sofa.

Kevin Patel, head of sixth form, Harrow high school in London

Kevin Patel

I privately broke down with happiness one year when I saw one of my students had got the results he needed to study marine biology. In our first lesson together, four years previously, he had told me it was his dream. I was excited to see him so happy on results day. He came to see me afterwards to thank me for helping him on his journey. I found that whole experience so validating.

On results day, I see the transformative effect my school and the teachers can have on kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, and that really motivates me. One young man from a deprived area had spent most of his GCSE years in a pupil referral unit. He came to our school and absolutely thrived. He left with two A*s and an A and went on to a top university. When children do well, it makes you feel proud. I can’t wait to see the faces of those children and speak to their parents.

The night before – I never sleep. I ruminate on the difficult decisions I’ve made throughout the year. As a senior leader, I invest a lot of my time making sure these children get good results. I have lots of difficult conversations with parents, children and teachers about why people are not progressing. It’s really important to me that, if I’m doing all the correct things, it’s reflected in the results.

Sapna Vadhers, assistant principal at Beal High School in Essex

Sapna Vadher

It’s rewarding to see the sheer joy and disbelief on children’s faces on results day. The hardest thing for me is when phenomenal students are a few marks off the top grades they need to get into a prestigious university. Some universities will keep them hanging for a few days and then refuse to let them in, which I think is really cruel. Those are the saddest cases for me. These students may be awarded a higher grade if they choose to get their paper remarked, but by then the university place they wanted may have gone. That feels really unfair. But there’s nothing I can say. The decision is totally out of my hands.

On one memorable results day, I was pregnant. I had promised to email two boys their results – this was in the days everything was sent by post – and I went into labour prematurely at 6am. So I got my phone out on the way to the hospital and messaged the boys their results. My husband was like: what are you doing? But I was determined to let those kids know how well they had done. My daughter was born an hour later.

• Interviews by Donna Ferguson