It has worked - although Sophie Taylor, the Rewards and Incentives Project Manager at Bristol City Academy, says it has become clear that the money is not the prime motivation. “It’s an incentive which has helped create an environment where students now strive to learn and it’s ‘cool’ to achieve.” Or, as one student puts it: “We just wanted to do as well as we could – although the money is a nice bonus.”
A pilot incentive scheme was introduced in 2002 because many students were failing to achieve their potential, despite the school’s efforts to provide extra tuition, mentoring and homework support. It was so successful, the Bristol ‘New Deal for Communities’ initiative, managed by GOSW, put up more than £300,000 towards the cost of extending the project through to 2006.
The results speak for themselves. Three years ago, less than one in seven of the students taking exams were predicted to gain five GCSEs with ‘C’ grades or better; in summer 2005, more than half achieved that.
Mark Gillespie, the NDC Programme Manager at GOSW, says: “The whole idea of ‘New Deal’ is to take risks, try innovative ideas and seek different solutions to age-old problems. This stands out as a real success story and a number of other areas have since followed suit as a result.”
