Paying cash to school students could improve their GCSE scores, particularly for those with predicted low attainment, a study has found.

Researchers experimented with granting Year 11 students up to £320 over the course of an academic year for working hard and for good attendance.

The results suggest that incentives could reduce the attainment gap by about half.

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The study, carried out by Simon Burgess, professor of economics at the University of Bristol, based rewards on the effort given by students, rather than their grades.

Students could earn up to £80 each half term, consisting of £30 for meeting the classwork threshold, £30 for meeting the homework threshold, £10 for attendance and £10 for behaviour.

Researchers then compared the GCSE results of groups of students who were either given a financial incentive, another incentive such as a trip or no incentive.

The study found that students with low attainment in their Year 6 tests and predicted GCSEs were highly responsive to incentives.

The Education Endowment Foundation-funded research also suggests that targeting incentives on schools could be cost-effective.

The study, published in next month’s issue of the Economics of Education Review, states: “Implementing the financial incentive treatment corresponds to an increase of approximately 3.5 per cent in per-pupil school spending.

“While it may be difficult to justify an across-the-board spending increase of this size, a targeted approach that increases low-performing students’ high -stakes exam scores by 10-15 per cent of a standard deviation much more easily satisfies cost-effectiveness calculations.”

The experiment included over 10,000 students in 63 secondary schools across England, and measured pupils’ results in their English, maths and science GCSEs. It was carried out on Year 11 pupils in 2012-13.