Frantic internet check ends with smiles all round

Jackson Harpur, 15, passed NCEA Level 1 with flying colours. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Jackson Harpur jumped out of bed as soon as he saw the Twitter announcement on his phone: NCEA results had been released.

It was about 8.30am; the announcement was six minutes old.

Jackson, a 15-year-old pupil of Hebron Christian College in Mt Albert, raced downstairs to his computer - and spent the next half hour trying to log on to the NCEA website.

Anxious students from around the country had overloaded the site, trying to find out if they had passed after their long summer wait.

"I was so anxious. I didn't want to check it and I did want to check it," Jackson said. "I've been thinking about them ever since I walked out of the last exam."

He had geography "sussed", but the mathematics exam wasn't so smooth.

"It seemed harder than the practice ones had been - especially 'parabolas'... and something about 'cubics'... It was so bad."

But Jackson had no reason to worry - he passed NCEA Level 1 with flying colours, earning an endorsement with merit.

"I was like, 'Yesss!"'

Facebook news feeds soon filled up with friends' chatter about NCEA.

Across New Zealand, teenagers were thrilled, relieved and disappointed over the results.

But in the Harpur household, Jackson's older sister was still refusing to look at whether her Year 13 had been an academic success.