TEARFUL Emily Smith, 17, opened her GCSE results and hugged her two-year-old son Joshua tight.

The teenager from Wheatley had just found out that despite taking a year out to become a mum and juggling revision with bringing up her son she’d passed six GCSEs – two B grades, three Cs and one E.

Being a mum to Joshua and revising to sit papers in six subjects was the first test.

“It was so hard,” Emily said. “I found it really difficult trying to balance what I wanted to do with what he needed to do.”

When it was time to take the exams the stress almost got too much.

“I was really nervous,” she said. “I dropped a year and had my son so it’s been tough. I left an exam halfway through I was so scared. I felt sick.”

And afterwards she was faced with a nervous wait to find out the results.

“I wasn’t thinking about it in the summer because it was all done, but then on Wednesday night it was horrible. I was thinking the worst,” she said.

Delighted with her results, the young mum is now keen to pursue a career as a midwife.

“I was my friend’s birthing partner a couple of weeks ago and I’ve done a couple of Aim Higher visits which have inspired me.”

Two years ago Polish teenager Bartosz Czerniawski arrived in Barton from Gdansk unable to speak English.

Yesterday the 16-year-old opened an envelope at Oxford Spires Academy in East Oxford to find he had got two A grades, five Bs and a D.

“Wow,” he said. “I was not really expecting that. I thought I would get Cs. I want to take physics and maths for A-Level.”

Speaking only broken English when he arrived in 2008, the teenager was determined to do well in his exams.

“It was kind of difficult because you had to fit in and at first no one really understands you and that’s hard to get through.

“But my teachers really helped me all the time.”