Offering money for each GCSE pass or points?

You say that. I did a token £10 per 9 and as a joke I said £200 if you get all 9’s.

she was predicted 4 of them and christ knows how but she got the full house….careful what you commit too………..

I agree. I also think that there is a time and place to teach kids these types of lessons. Your exams are important and with you permanently for job applications and your future choices. They are still developing at this age and I wouldn’t judge anyone who decided to use money to motivate.

A few months ago some friends of ours, who also have a DC in year 11, asked us if we were doing this. We hadn't considered it. After the discussion we had a think and decided we wouldn't, partly because our DC hates shopping and barely ever asks for anything for birthday / Christmas so we felt it wouldn't be a motivation. In principle, I'm conflicted as they should be doing it for themselves with the achievement as the reward, but on the other hand many workplaces incentivise results (profit related bonuses etc) and surely this is the same thing. Anyway, we haven't offered our DC anything for their GCSE results.

As for the friends who asked us what we were doing.....their DC is getting £1000 for every Grade 9! (they also have a lot more money to throw around than us!)

Dd1 guessed what her results would be and I gave her £20 for each match and £50 for each 9. (She got 7 x 9’s).

DD2 is completely different & not academic. She will have a different structure possibly based on passes & correct guesses. She takes GCSE’s next year.

My parents did, it was a fiver for a C, tenner for B, 15 for A and 20 for A* if I remember right. Anything less than a C we had to pay them. Made zero difference to my motivation though.

Not in the UK now so no GCSEs but I'm considering rewarding DD for every 10 she gets on her 9th grade certificate next year (end of comprehensive school). I won't tell her beforehand though, it'll just be a nice surprise to go with our usual end of school sushi lunch. She's already motivated to do well for two reasons - to get a good enough grade average to get into the high school she wants to go to, and for spite - she wants to do better than her ex-friend 😂

I will reward matriculation results with an interrail trip round Europe (need to start saving but got a few years before that)

I think 14-15 year olds are immature (especially boys) and don't always have the intrinsic motivation, or appreciate the consequences of their actions. External motivation was very useful with our ds and it made sure he didn't have to deal with disastrous results. We didn't do it for A Levels, as we felt by 17 he needed to learn to motivate himself. It happened a bit late, and he under-achieved, but he did get down to it himself.

Almost impossible to do retakes, it means taking a whole different path in life and hard for parents to have to pay for this to happen.

I am fairly sure that none of the people talking about intrinsic motivation and letting kids fail have actually allowed that to happen in their own family.

I needed the motivation so it worked for me as I would have got Cs without any revision.

Tried that out if desperation but didn’t work!

The sad side of assigning an amount to each grade is that on the morning that the grades come through, if your child didn't quite get what they studied for, then you hit them with a reduced amount, it's like a punishment where you really hope it will be a reward. Grades don't work that way. If you feel you want to motivate your child then say that if they study hard you will reward them. I have been a teacher over twenty years and listened to this conversation pre and post exam results day many times. I also have three children and rewarded all of them. I gave all three the same amount as I knew they all did their best and would hate to have given more to the one with slightly higher grades. That's not a parent's job. Think carefully about exam results day, would be my advice. Good luck.

We did money for doing old test papers. Meant more revision was done. It seemed to work fine. I did notice that the hardest subject was the one DD got the best results for as she revised more for it thinking she'd fail, and ace the others!

I did with DS1, I believe it helped him focus - a bit more than he otherwise might have done. It wasn't so much the money, it was the new bike it would help him buy. Then I came unstuck a year later with naturally academic DS2 who got mostly top grades, had to negotiate to settle for a sensible figure.

No.

Maybe it depends on the kid....?

It didnt piss me off...🤷🏻‍♀️

my dh parents did the same.
It was also very common in general at my highly academic school and there were A grade aplenty...

Our kids are a way off it, but we will prob pay for grades... it's a reward for hard work.

I think this is one of those mumsnet things people lie about.... like when everyone on here pretends they wont/didn't bother tutoring for grammar school

Yes we did for GCSE and I think it worked. He was very unmotivated and achieved 2-3 grade uplift from mocks. Would do it again.

Bless her. Hope she enjoys her long summer 🙌. It can be such a relief to leave all that behind you.

Why do we give tips or bonuses to people doing there jobs? Isn’t it to show appreciation for doing a job well done?

dd got 1s and 2s in her mocks, she’s worked incredibly hard so regardless of her grades, she will be rewarded, just going into school each day was a massive challenge for her, but she did it, and she sat each and every exam (complete bloody waste of time, but there we go). She’s relieved to have finished her education.

I always tell my kids that if they don’t do well, it’s their life not mine. Both my kids are very self motivated, one of them has finished their a levels and still studying ready for uni.

Yes, both children were offered/given the same financial reward, albeit for different grades. They have differing academic abilities and therefore the target grades were different. We wanted to reward them financially for their efforts and encourage them. Both have SEN and find studying at home challenging. Some people choose a meal, new clothes etc but we chose money for them to do as they please with.

But you generally can't just retake except for maths and Eng Lang, and pass rates on resits are low.

Some 15/16yos are quite immature. If you thought rewarding grades would get them to work, then why wouldn't you?
To be able to write for ever more on a CV '9 gcse passes at grade 5+' rather than '6 gcses passes at 4+', isn't it worth trying?

No money here. It’s their life.

No. What for? I have GCSEs myself. My DDs exam results are hers. I will support her when she asks, provide a home environment that enables study, sleep, nutrition and moral support but I will not become overly invested in her results. They are up to her. So many parents are desperate for their children to get high marks in lots of subjects and have given their children the impression that life without 7s is impossible. It clearly isn't.

Education is a broader thing than GCSEs. Can your child hold a conversation, sustain a commitment, a voluntary position, make a phone call even? Can they bounce back from a minor setback? Do they have internal motivation to pursue activities for their own sake rather than putting them on a university application form? These things will get them further than a 7 in a subject they won't continue beyond GCSE.

I would never incentivise my child with money for a myriad of reasons but if I was to be tempted down that path, it wouldn't be to get a particular number in a GCSE. I cannot understand why parents are so invested in the numbers and I am a teacher.

No. The results were a reward in themselves. They shouldn’t have to be bribed to do their best - they should understand it is for them, not me.