£100 for an A - would you pay your kid for their GCSE grades? This mum claims her son is 'genuinely motivated' by her 'results reward strategy'

One mum has said that she’s paying her son for the GCSE grades he gets, but not everyone thinks it’s a good idea.

It’s exam season – every teenager’s favourite time of year! The amount of students cheating has doubled, while one nutritionist has explained that the food you have in the kitchen could help your teen, but would you follow this mum’s lead in motivating your teen?

Personal finance writer Lynn Beattie, or Mrs Mummypenny, has taken to Instagram to say that she’ll be rewarding her son for his GCSE grades with cold, hard cash, as follows:

• Grade 9: £100

• Grade 8: £75

• Grade 7: £50

• Grade 6: £40

• Grade 5: £25

• Grade 4: £10

• Grade 3 or below: £0

She explains that a friend’s parent did something similar when she was 16, and vowed that she’d do the same for her children. Her own son could get around £500-600 based on his mock results, and she describes him as “genuinely motivated” and “working so hard” as a result. 

However, her followers are divided. One said, “Absolutely NO to this. You reward effort not grades. They could put their heart into it and just not be able to achieve the higher grades. Rewarding money is so crass.”

Another said, “This is unfair because they could still try their best and just have a bad day or just not be capable even if they do a lot of revision. So, maybe reward them for the amount of effort they put in rather than their grade.”

But some did agree with Beattie’s approach. “In this day and age, you do what works for you … Good luck and I hope he smashes them all!” wrote one commenter, while another said, “I did [the] same last year, doing it again but not same reward. Less, as she is a gifted child, and therefore I had to cough up almost quite a tidy sum.”

In related news, here are four tips to help teens cope with exam results disappointment, while here are seven exam stress tips to help your child keep calm. And if your kids aren’t quite at the GCSE stage yet, here are 179 fantastic facts for kids to really blow their mind.