By Colette Hume BBC Wales education correspondent

Agony and ecstasy - the annual ritual of students' exam results

It's almost exam result time. And that starts a rollercoaster of emotions for pupils and their teachers.

For many teenagers GCSE and A-level days are literally life-changing.

If they get the results they need, it's off to university or college, and perhaps leaving home or starting work for the first time.

And if Christmas is the busiest time of the year for vicars, then for us education correspondents, it's those two weeks in August.

We broadcast live from a host school every year starting from when the staff receive the results in the early morning post, right through to that nail-biting moment of truth for the students.

Taking the BBC into school is a huge operation. All the main news outlets want to hear from us, from Radio Wales, to Radio Five, from Wales Today to News 24, and of course they all want to see and hear that magic moment live - when the students are given those results.

If broadcasting that moment live sounds terrifying, well it is! And not just for the students but also for the person holding the mic.

The good news is that we've never had a student receive really bad news live on air - but plenty have looked as if they are about to faint or cry as they open the envelope.

I'm not going to give the game away, but remember that the teachers see all the results before the students... but those grades still come as a huge surprise to them and us. An extra supply of tissues is an absolute must.

Comprehensive picture

For their teachers it's the culmination of years of work. As a reporter it's great to see the realisation dawn on the faces of those young people.

For those students who don't do quite so well, it could mean the end of a dream - or at least that dream being put on hold as they retake exams or rethink their future plans.

It's then that you see the staff swing into action, helping the A-level students as they try to find an alternative university place through the clearing system, or counselling the GCSE students as they try to decide what to do next.

Of course one of our biggest audiences won't be watching the TV coverage, or listening on the radio, they'll be reading about the results on our news website.

Writing the story for readers is now as important as broadcasting it. We'll be providing a comprehensive picture about the results in Wales and how they compare with previous years.

We'll also hear directly from A-level and GCSE students who'll be writing about their own experiences before and after they get their results.