Exam results day: the week before and the weeks after

A level results are released to candidates on Thursday 13 August this year, and GCSE results on Thursday 20 August, with schools receiving both a day earlier (Joint Council for Qualifications, 2025). Most of the advice parents will read this month is about the morning itself: what to say, whether to go in with them, how to react to the grades. That advice is fine as far as it goes. But the evidence on when exam pressure actually does harm points somewhere less obvious, and it is not results day.

What the research on exam pressure found

The most detailed UK evidence comes from the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, which examined 922 suicides by people aged under 25 in England and Wales during 2014 and 2015, and recorded detailed background information on 391 of them (NCISH, 2017). Of the 285 who were aged under 20, 145 were in education at the time of death. Sixty-three of those, 43 per cent, were experiencing academic pressures. In 46 cases, just under a third of everyone in education, those pressures were exam-related, which the study defined as current or impending exams, or exam results. Five died on the day of an exam or the day after. These are small numbers describing rare events, and no parent should read them as a forecast about their own child. They are worth knowing because exam pressure shows up in this data as a real background factor, not a seasonal talking point.

The timing is not what most people assume

The same study looked at when these deaths happened. Among under 20s who were experiencing academic pressures, the highest numbers fell in May, April, June and September (NCISH, 2017). Across all under 20 deaths in the study, the peak month was May and the lowest was July. August does not appear as a peak. September does. Distress attached to exams clusters around the exams themselves, and then again at the start of the new academic year, when a young person is actually living with the consequences: a sixth form place they did not want, a course that was not their first choice, a friendship group that has scattered to different colleges. Results day is when the information arrives. September is when the reality of it starts.

What young people say when they contact a helpline

Childline delivered 706 counselling sessions across the UK in 2024/25 where the young person raised worries about exam results (NSPCC, 2025). What they described went well beyond disappointment: trouble sleeping, anxiety, low mood, loss of confidence, and self-harm. The themes behind those difficulties were consistent. Pressure from family and teachers to achieve particular grades. Fear about what failure would mean. Worry about being judged less intelligent than their friends. That last one matters more than parents tend to expect. For a lot of teenagers a grade is not information about a subject. It is a public statement about how clever they are, delivered in front of everyone they know, on a day the whole country is talking about.

The fortnight before

The most useful thing you can do before 13 or 20 August is have the conversation about the worse outcome while it is still hypothetical. Young people who have never once said out loud what happens if the grades come in low are the ones who reach results day with nowhere for the fear to go. Ask directly. What is your plan if you miss the offer. Who would you want with you when you open them. Would you rather do it at school or at home. Naming the possibility does not invite it. It just means the fear has been said out loud once before the day arrives. Watch sleep in the run-up, because it is usually the first thing to go and the easiest to notice. A teenager who has drifted to a 3am bedtime and is sleeping until midday in the week before results is not simply enjoying the summer.

The day itself

Take your cue from your child rather than from the day you had pictured. Some young people want a parent in the car park. Some want to be left alone until lunchtime. Both are reasonable. If the grades are lower than hoped, resist the pull towards solutions. Clearing, resits, appeals and reviews of marking all exist, and none of them expire that afternoon. Someone who has just had bad news needs roughly a day of being allowed to feel bad about it before the logistics begin. Moving straight to the fix, however practical, reads to a teenager as a message that their feelings about it are inconvenient. Avoid the other reflex too, which is reassurance that grades do not matter. They do matter, your child knows they matter, and hearing otherwise from a parent who plainly cared about them a week ago is not comforting. Saying that this is a genuine setback and that you will work out together what happens next is more honest, and it lands better.

The weeks that follow

Almost none of the results day advice covers this part, which on the evidence above is the part that matters. Once results day passes, everyone moves on. Extended family stop asking. The group chat goes quiet. The young person is left with a changed plan and three empty weeks before term starts. What to watch for in that window: withdrawal that does not lift after a few days, sleep that stays broken, dropping activities they used to enjoy, talking about themselves in fixed and absolute terms such as being a failure or having ruined everything, and any sign of self-harm. Distress that shrinks steadily over a fortnight is ordinary disappointment behaving as it should. Distress that looks the same in mid-September as it did on results day is not.

When it is worth a clinical assessment

Most young people are disappointed by exam results at some point and recover without any clinical involvement. An assessment is worth considering when low mood or anxiety has persisted for more than a few weeks without shifting, when a young person is refusing to attend their new school, college or sixth form, when sleep and appetite have changed and stayed changed, or when there is self-harm or any talk of not wanting to be here. If a young person is at immediate risk, call 999 or go to A and E. Childline is free on 0800 1111 for the young person themselves. Blip is a specialist mental health service for children and young people aged 7 to 25. If results have left your son or daughter somewhere they are not recovering from, and September is coming without much sign of improvement, get in touch and one of our clinicians will talk it through with you.