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 ?

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

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 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.

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)

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.

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!)

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.

I just told DC that I will reward them if they work hard including doing the tutor homework, put it in front of them and is still sitting there 🙈 they were distracted on mobile land and heading to a friend later; maybe it wasn’t the right time 😅

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………..