To give my child some money for (hopefully) passing school exams?

[tricerotopsrule]

Just wondering what is reasonable to do to regarding recognising my son hopefully passing his school exams? He put a lot of effort in and I was thinking of giving X amount per exam result. He said a pal is getting £1000 per A which I think is mad but I've no idea what the norm is??

I'm curious to hear how other recognise and award their kids exam results day??

I gave nothing to DC, and did not fall for the other parents are giving X spiel. Am not really bothered what others do. Getting good results benefits DC after all.

I wouldn’t do that. Give him a gift for the effort, not for the ones he passed. You say he’s put in a lot of effort, that should be rewarded, not the grades.

I give mine £10 for every increase in grade between mock and actual results. Focused entirely on the effort rather than the results.

Not quite the same, but I’ve arranged flowers to be delivered to my niece the day before the results. She worked hard and I want celebrate and acknowledge that.

My son is expecting his GCSE results in a few weeks. We’ve told him he can have £1 per grade (e.g. a grade 6 = £6), so he’s likely to end up getting somewhere around £80 in total if he does really well. There’s no way we could afford anything more, and he’s really happy with this system. £1000 per A grade (are these for A-levels or are you overseas?) is lovely if you’re absolutely loaded, but not realistic for most families.

I am. Nothing luke that amount though.
She's quite bright but needed encouraging to study. I knew if she put effort in she'd be capable of getting better results.
She'll get around £300 altogether if she gets her predicted results.
The promise of more money gave her more incentive to study.

I won't be giving DS any money! He works hard because he wants to do a medical degree, I'm not giving him money for doing what he should be doing anyway.

My DM totally poisoned this for me. We had treats for effort but never rewards for results apart from our own enthusiastic congratulations.

I got £50 for an A and £100 per A* at gcse and £1k per A at a level 20-25 years ago.

Bs got nothing and I knew well in advance of exam time. it was highly motivating.
I was able but a bit lazy
I’ll prob do it with mine
not sure why you would announce it post-exams and pre-results though there isn’t any point

This is years ago but my parents promised me £100 per A and perhaps £80 per B.
Very generous at the time and it probably helped motivate me so no harm done at all.
However I was academically able. Tricky to have that sort of system if your child is less academic or you have two children who are not equally academic (I was an only child so easier)

I told my DC if they didn't study they wouldn't get into good unis and end up having to live with me forever. That seemed to be enough incentive!

Oh but offering money after the exams won’t help motivation at all!

I rewarded the effort, not the grade. There’s always someone who’s getting £1k per A but it’s probably offered as they know their kid won’t get it.

I think I gave about £400 in total for my son's really good results after alot of hard work and late night revision, much of which we did together

We are planning a holiday to where they want to go, doesn't matter the result, achieving it is enough

There's nothing reasonable or the norm for this, it's entirely up to you

What are you thinking you're rewarding? You need to be clear on that and what that thing you think translates to a monetary value. Basing in what anyone else does is meaningless, why would you do that?

I bought my son an Apple Watch, his dad gave him 5k. It wasn’t x amount per 9 or he would have been broke as he got 9x9’s! Dd is due hers in august and I’m getting her a Dyson air warp and her dad will give her the same cash I’d imagine

Take him out for dinner and celebrate with him. No need to spend £1000s! It is teaching them that £1000 is easy to come by and they will fritter it away so easily. It is setting them up for disappointment when they go out in the real world and realise that £1000 is a monthly wage in some jobs.

If your child has worked hard and done their best, then surely you should be rewarding that? Grade boundaries are always somewhat arbitrary, and surely any reward should be for the effort put in - it is not given to all of us to get a string of A’s, and no-one can do more than their best. What other people give their DC should be supremely irrelevant with regard to what you decide to give your DS.

No money rewards. First two dc both got 9 9s so I won’t be changing tack for dc3. Reward for good A level results is university place / better earnings potential on average so no need for me to add to that.

Why would you have been broke if you'd given an amount per A? You could have chosen any amount you liked, 50p or 1/9th of the total you could afford

Did you get an A in maths 😂

We are going for a a meal at his favourite restaurant and then treating him to some new trainers..thats it.

Seems a bit odd to tie amount to grades after the exams have happened? You’ve already said he worked hard.

My mum gave me money by grade - pure peer pressure as everyone else was getting it!

Id probably just set aside a lump sum (size will depend on what you can afford) to give him as congratulations for working hard.

Isn't it too late ?

We won't be giving cash.
Is your friend specifying a certain grade for a certain amount?
I am not against it per se but giving cash now for a specific result seems silly....they can't change anything now so it's not an incentive. I could understand if they were unmotivated back in January setting targets with cash rewards to try and focus their minds!

But where possible I prefer to reward effort and resilience than specific outcomes, as every child is different and because things can go wrong on the day.
DD worked really hard and could not have done more. Her reward is a tickets to a very expensive concert.