Offering money for each GCSE pass or points?

[Purpleandyellowflowers]

Would you offer money to your child for each GCSE pass/point? If your child isn’t self motivated ?

He can say No all he wants.
But GCSE grades don't come with a caveat of these were obtained only with financial rewards. The grades are the grades and stay with someone for life. They open doors to next steps, can be viewed for uni applications, for non uni kids may be relevant for first jobs.
If a parent has tried other methods and feels this is the way to get the teen to work then let them.

I'm not really making a case one way or another, I am merely highlighting that the way you frame these things (and how you motivate people) can impact their attitudes to things longer term.

I think if you knew it would motivate them to revise then I would offer money for the effort not the grade specifically. Your child can work hard, do as well as they can and still get lower grades than you think because in their cohort other children did better.

Others may do better because their school provides a better educational environment, that might be because it is an incredible state school or it might be one that charges tens of thousands a year with smaller classes and far less disruption.

Anecdotally, Ds got a mark that one year would have been a grade 8 and a year later, a 7. Same mark, different cohort where more children got a higher mark due to performing better on a subjective paper with regard to marking it. Not maths where it is more definite.

The grade curve applies and does mean some children do not get above a grade 4.

Thanks. These have been my thoughts. I have never offered money for helping in the house or school stuff as I think it is their responsibility; and we are as already spending in tutors.

We did, not loads. It really depends on the child.

Agree re some kids not being matured enough when doing GCSE. I don’t think DC understands the importance.

I would never reward based on grades. For some children all 9s is much easier than 3 4s is for another. If there are siblings that makes the based on grades particularly unfair.

for DS I did it based on attending each exam! He gets his results in August and we will go for a celebration meal no matter what

Depends on the child.
Mine is very motivated by bribery so I use it a lot.
It's also an easy win for me - less arguing. Here's the deal, your choice.
I see it like being offered a bonus at work.

We took ds to the Toby Carvery. He was motivated by roast potatoes.

😂

No. I wouldn’t. I just don’t believe it works. Try and foster intrinsic motivation in your kid. If they haven’t got it, the consequences of not having it will kick in at some point, and voila - intrinsic motivation.

When does it end? A-Levels? Driving test? …. Degree?

But not all DC go on to uni. For some it is a point of getting those passes to do a L3 BTEC, where they then fly.

If i could bribe DD to learn to drive, I would.

£90 for a 9, £80 for an 8, £70 for a 7 etc etc

No. Reward the effort and hard work when they've finished their exams.

@TeenToTwenties

Fair enough - just not my style. I encourage mine for sure. I try and make them see the value of their GCSEs. We’re not a well off family. My kids know that they’re not going to be bribed or funded to motivate them. It’s on them and they know that.

It isn't my style either, but I can absolutely see why some parents resort to it.

This is what we did, but with more for each 8, then more again for each 9.

DS is very bright and would have passed everything without opening a book, but this incentivised him to actually put some effort in to get top marks. He has openly admitted he wouldn't have bothered without it. (We didn't bother doing this for A levels since without top marks he wouldn't have been able to get into uni, so he was mature enough by then to take responsibility himself...)

Good idea

I haven’t done this. I bought chocolates a card and we had a takeaway. I would have done the same regardless of grades. Grades are not always reflective of the effort put in or lack of it. My son’s incentive was that he needed the grades to get into his chosen level 3 college course. He didn’t want to do a level 2 or another year of GCSEs. We home educated.

Years ago I gave my son money for each A, simply because he had worked so hard. He was highly self-motivated and I didn't tell him I was going to do it until about a week before the exams so if he hadn't worked hard it would have been too late.
He ended up with 9 As so it was quite expensive!

If a child is a bit lacking in motivation but is motivated by money I think it might help.

We offered money going by expected grades from teachers. Worked well for both our children and gave them an incentive.

Agreeing with awarding effort.
9s can just be luck on the day. And if you have more than 1 child, it's not really fair if they both work hard but one gets more money as they get better results.

@Stowickthevast

My thoughts. I’ve got one who’s waiting for results and will pass them all with flying colours. No bribery needed. My daughter will work just as hard as him, but still won’t get 8s.

With ds, who didn’t really see the importance of them, but really wanted a job (August birthday so still too young), we paid a nominal amount (I think £2, 4 years ago) per hour of work. Most of it was done on Seneca so could be tracked, but he was actually very conscientious and stopped the clock whenever he got distracted! I reckon he did about 100 hours overall which was much more than he’d have managed otherwise and his results were better than expected…

Absolutely not