School's almost out for summer with students throughout the Bay of Plenty breathing a sigh of relief today as they sit their last NCEA exams.

In the Bay of Plenty, 9318 students have spent the last three weeks sitting NCEA scholarship, level one, two and three exams.

Across New Zealand 143,520 students have sat exams.

The most popular exam in the Bay of Plenty was level one English with 3078 students sitting it.

A total of 4388 students in the region sat level one exams with 3612 in level two and 2357 sat level three.

Bethlehem College Head Boy Eremia Tapsell, 17, finished his last exam on Friday, November 25 and is looking forward to the summer starting with a Leavers Dinner tonight.

'Exams went pretty well – the hardest was definitely physics on Friday.”

Eremia is planning to spend his summer helping out on his parent's dairy farm in Maketu while fitting in a bit of partying at Rhythm and Vines in Gisborne for New Years.

'It is a bit sad leaving school initially, but I am really looking forward to university next year.”

Eremia is heading to Canterbury University next year to study engineering.

The last exams will be sat today in level one music and Latin, level two economics and business, level three music studies and Chinese and scholarship level economics and Japanese.

The New Zealand Qualification Authority says exams have gone smoothly and a team of 1825 markers from around the country will now mark all papers by the end of the year.

Results are expected to be posted online in mid January.

School holidays are due to commence in the first and second weeks of December.