Seb Spence is cultivating the art of patience and it's really frustrating his family and friends, writes Michael Hambleton.

The sixth former has refused to open the envelopes containing his A-level results instead, he is turning them into a work of art.

Seb, 18, of High Street, Harwell, admitted: "Half my friends say it is mad, while others don't believe I can contain my curiosity."

Family and friends are just bemused and puzzled by the teenager's off-beat exercise in self-control. But while Seb's fellow students at Didcot Sixth Forms checked their A-levels, he has included his envelopes into a piece of art representing the past two years of his life.

Seb hopes the sealed envelopes with his grades for graphic design, design and technology, fine art and general studies will add value to a collage of photographs and souvenirs.

He plans to sell it to help raise the 4,000 it will cost to take part in an expedition to the Central American country of Belize, organised by the charity Rally International.

He said: "Whoever buys the work will 'own' my results it will be up to the purchaser to decide whether to open the envelopes." Fortunately he has been accepted as a student at Banbury College of Art and Design on the basis of a portfolio of his art unlike many students who need their A-levels for university.

Meanwhile Seb is taking a year out, including the expedition to Belize with other young people, helping build schools and health posts in remote jungle villages.

Parents Alan and Janet Spence are still coming to terms with Seb's idea. "We naturally want to know how well he did," said photographer Mr Spence. "But I respect and I think I understand what he is doing." Mrs Spence who works at the Oxford College of Further Education confessed: "I suppose I was just a bit tempted to steam open the en- velopes."

Headmaster Chris Bryan, whose lips are sealed on the outcome of Seb's A-levels, said: "He must have enormous self-control because most students could not wait to open their envelopes."