Aibu to offer my daughter money incentives for good gcse grades?

[Whatsmyname26]

My daughter is just starting to do some GCSEs with her first exam later this year. She is sitting them early and achieving well (looking at a level 5/6 atm) but I would like to encourage her to reach for the higher grades and remember children being given money incentives for different grades when I did my exams. Has anyone done this? Did it help encourage them to work harder to achieve higher marks? If so how much per top grade? She is only sitting one gcse this year and currently looking to sit another either November this year or next June.

Does a reward help incentivise them or should they just work because they should? I should point out she is autistic too.

If you think it would give her extra motivation why not.
My son's friend was offered 100 pounds for every A Grade a couple of years ago. I don't think it worked though. His parents were desperate!

She’s a generally motivated child and likes learning and has chosen this subject because she enjoys it but she definitely seems comfortable with the marks she is getting. I don’t want to pressure her but wondered if the incentive could help without it being me nagging her to do more iyswim

Why is she sitting them early if she’s getting a grade 5? Is the option there to do them at the correct time?

We are just experimenting really. We home Ed so this is like a test run. Her tutor thinks she will do better by the time of the exam as her knowledge is amazing but her exam technique needs work. The bulk she will sit in a couple of years but the opportunity came up to do this this year and it seemed daft not to

I’m a secondary teacher of 20+ years experience.... financial incentives for GCSEs is a fucking ridiculous idea!

What next? Pay her for A levels? Higher Ed? Financial rewards for professional exams? Passing an apprenticeship?

Some people do it, but they do their kids no favours. When do you stop the ‘financial incentives’?? When does your DD learn about achieving for its own sake?

Personally I think that this is the age when students need to start understanding that the effort they put in results in the rewards of achieving and the open doors afterwards as a result.
I think if my child worked really hard I would reward that afterwards - but I would not tell them before hand.
It’s a good life skill to work hard for personal satisfaction rather than because Mum or Dad will give them money. I don’t think that promotes innate drive.
Also what is they work really hard but have a bad day on the exam and don’t do well?

Really think it depends on the child - works best for those who are materialistic and prone to laziness! If your daughter is not these then a) it won't work and b) it risks making her put herself under extra unnecessary pressure.

I'm sorry but I think this is utterly ridiculous. Imagine if she doesn't do as well as you hoped and knows how disappointed you will be (because the bribery proved you wanted her to aim high). Let her be and let her achieve what she can, especially as she is already doing well. Treat her once she receives her result, top grades or not! She is your daughter and you should be proud of her achievements, not just if they are a grade to suit your expectations. Urgh.

The financial rewards further down the line come in the form of salaries and access to courses or jobs she wants. She isn’t at a stage to make that connection yet really. I’m just mulling the idea over really. We haven’t really done rewards etc to to now so this would be new.

Blimey @mumtomaxwell you would think teachers would be glad of parents doing everything they can to help get the ol’ progress 8 scores up!

Do whatever you feel is best for your child op. Just remember you’ll have to do the same for siblings too.

Depressing to see a secondary school teacher of '20+years experience' being so inflexible and closed minded. Time for a career change MumtoMaxwell??

Hmm maybe I will do a day out or something similar after the exam regardless of how she does instead?

Genuinely it doesn’t matter what she gets in this exam at all, she’s doing it purely for the interest in the subject. She is autistic though so there is an element of not caring too much over the grade or seeing the bigger picture long term of doing well. Your comments do make a lot of sense though and she actually isn’t reward driven generally (I still remember the horror of sticker charts when she was small - we didn’t attempt this for long as she genuinely couldn’t give a toss about earning a sticker or whatever).

I was never offered any kind of incentive by my parents and have never done so for my own children. I was brought up to see success as its own reward. The incentive for doing well in your GCSEs is that you get to do the A levels you want in your preferred institution.

You need to google extrinsic vs intrinsic and see a) which is considered most effective and b) which is considered most healthy for the person.

Why don’t you have little treats along the way to reward her study effort?

If you must: reward the effort, not the grade.

Her sibling may well not do standard GCSEs as has more complex learning needs but if he does we would be able to do the same for him if it helped motivate him. Lots to consider I guess. This is all new to me really so just mulling over options and curious as to how others approached it. I certainly know children who were rewarded for each higher level and it didn’t seem to be a negative but I agree I don’t want it to add extra stress to her. Maybe I just sit back and let her drive this one fully and see what happens. She’s only year 8 so if it goes horribly wrong she can always resist in a year or 2.

Anyone here seen Big Business ( Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin,a favourite in our house).
There's the point where one character say in horror to his ex "You're paying our child to learn??"
That's me,so I wouldn't.I think your reward for hard work is to get the high grade!
Which maybe a bit naive,but I'd stand by it.I think there are very limited circumstances where money might work but unless your DD is very motivated by money,if she's happy with the grade she's getting will it really alter how she behaves?
I'd talk to her about what she could achieve,try and raise her own expectations of herself,if you think its within her capabilities. I got a lot of talk from my DC who were happy because they were doing better than X in their class,and needed that put in context of the wider world!

Doryhunky that is perfect! And makes real logical sense!! Maybe a treat out or similar each week/fortnight she gets her work done (nothing expensive). Seems so simple now I’ve seen you write it

I remember my friends getting these incentives and being naffed off my A grades were worth nothing in our house 😂

I do occasionally use rewards at exam time. But only for effort. Eg when they’ve worked hard all weekend we might go out Sunday evening for a treat as a well done (and an opportunity to wind down). But I would never reward performance, or make them feel that a poorer grade than anticipated is a failure which is what incentives do. It sounds like your DC doesn’t need the highest grades at this age / stage. Why not just view it as practise?

I wasn't a fan of the idea. DH was, so offered DD £100 for every grade 8 or 9 she got.....£800 later 😂 DD bought herself a very nice new laptop for sixth form.

Infinitive curve yes this is where we are at. She’s doing better than others so it’s all good in her mind. She is doing well but she is definitely capeable of more once she figures out what the examiners want etc. I’m probably worrying unnecessarily, just having a flap over whether I’m facilitating in the best way or not. It’s useful to hear other people’s opinions

Catherine that’s hilarious! Did he still think it was a good approach after? Do you think it did help motivate or would they have done well regardless?

It motivated our Ds. Different system in Ireland where they do state exams around 15 years old. They have 9 subjects at that stage, so we gave an amount for a grade A, B and C - Ds came up with the idea and worked hard to get good grades. He's doing his leaving Cert now which is 7 subjects. He has courses in mind for uni and will need a certain amount of points to get in, so achieving those points is his motivation now. There's no harm in giving a few pounds per grade - it doesn't lead to an expectation of monetary rewards for every achievement as some may think.

My parents did this. I didnt need the incentive at all, I worked hard because I wanted to. My grades meant my dad 'owed' me £2000. They would have struggled to have afforded it and I knew it. So, I asked them to let me have a Guinea pig instead. I didn't particularly want one, but my dad was very anti pet and I knew it would be a cheap reward and he'd never suspect I was trying to find a way out of taking family money they didn't need to give me. He got to 'give in' and let his hippy, dippy vegetarian daughter have a little pet. (I loved and looked after the Guinea pig before anyone gets mad!) However, when I took a gap year after my A-Levels and my mum insisted on taking half my salary as board, that did push me to apply for university instead of festering in a dead end job for minimum wage. Even after I'd met my now husband, I still pushed on with uni, desperate to escape the monotony of working 10hr days for £350 a month. When she then gave me every penny I'd given her back the day before I left for university I cried.