THIS week's look at students waiting for exam results makes us wonder how they got on and where they are now.

Jodie Koo looks anxious as she awaits her A level results. Did she get what she wanted and where did she go after leaving Trinity School?

And Lucy Wright, from Caldew School, who got the the three A Stars and one A, that confirmed her admission to Oxford in 2016.

Did she go? What did she study? Is she still a student or has she gone on to some exciting job somewhere?

As someone who almost survived an educational system where most of what you learnt was by rote, understanding the hows and whys was far less important than getting the answer right.

And certainly, in that system, there would have been no trips abroad - or anywhere for that matter.

In 2018, however A level and GCSE students from Austin Frier's headed to the French Alps to ski as part of the practical element to their schoolwork.

I am not sure what to make of the photograph of Nicola Greer. The 2003 caption reads: "Nicola Greer scans her results to see if they are her passport to a career in a travel agents" in 2003.

Were her results enough to make her dream come true and, if so, did she pursue that dream or go onto something else?

In my mind she has been making other people's holiday dreams come true and has been enjoying junkets around the world, trying out what she is selling.

But then, you wonder how she has fared during lockdown. How has she coped with the crisis and chaos travel anywhere has become.

Then there are the students from Newman School who, by just sitting the exams, deserved to win.

They were the ones who had to study and take their exams during the 2005 floods that devastated parts of Carlisle.

They lost their school and some of them even lost their homes to the floods. I am sure we all hope that the 16 years since has found them all exactly where they want to be in life.

A levels and GCSE seem so important and in some ways, of course, they are.

But they are not the end of the world and thousands of people have got where they want to be without the results they banked on - and sometimes results better or worse than expected could lead students down a different path to the one they planned... but still with great results.