Favourite teacher gift you’ve received!

[Angelic090]

Teachers of mumsnet, what has been your favourite ever end of year gift you have received? I need some inspiration!

Book voucher.

A personalised papier diary, a pretty water bottle and an email to my headteacher saying how good I was! All different parents but very very appreciated as are the pictures and boxes of malteasers.

I love it all. The best teacher mugs, the Maltesers, the hastily drawn cards! I do love the “clubbed together” vouchers, but I do miss the fun of the bits and bobs the children make or choose themselves. I have a nice JL vase that I got as an NQT 20 years ago - when owning vases seemed very grown up!

An acrostic poem was my favourite. Also love a Costa voucher. A £5 is perfect for a coffee with a syrup. I've also loved a wine glass, a child made me earrings, a handprints candle and a mug with a Harry Potter quote. 😍

Gorgeous turquoise beads (my favourite colour), a handmade cushion referencing a shared class memory, handmade cards with lovely and funny messages and drawings.

A card with a personal message.

When the pupil was in year 7 they were having a rough time and behaving out of character. Others punished. I sought to support.

My actions meant the pupil avoided surgery.

I then had him in year 11. When he let mum wrote me a card remembering what I'd done.

That meant so much. It meant I'd helped a child and a family.

Many years ago a little boy in my year 1 class remembered me saying that I really like tuna sandwiches.

He bought me a tin of tuna. All his own idea apparently, and just so cute that I nearly cried. 🙂

When a child and their parents give you a card or a message saying that you’ve made a difference to them.

Yes it’s the cards with heartfelt messages that mean the most.
Ive been teaching for 20 years and can’t really remember many specific gifts (although have always been grateful) but I’ve got a collection of special cards which remind me why I do the job and I get out to read when I’ve had a tough day!

Year 12 class (not well off for the most part) marbled some paper and each wrote a personal note. They were all stuffed in a Kilner jar. Still got it years later!

Years ago I was given a silver scarf. A little girl used to wear her mum's scarf when she played teachers at home, as I was always cold in the mornings and wore mine. She insisted on me matching the one she wore. She must have graduated by now, but I still think of her when I wear it.

I preferred the thoughtful (and cheaper) hand made stuff etc. Ive also got a lip balm on the go ..one lovely class bought me lots of lip balms, a mug with rabbits on as I said I loved a rabbit I owned as a kid, a plant they had grown, cookies they had made, stuff like that rather than just chucking money at something or a bottle of wine etc.
also when I got married my class made me a little notebook of 'what love is..' with their drawings and thoughts in.
Gave up teaching but still remember all those lovely little gifts.

I also got a very expensive Radley purse and a £50 iTunes voucher from the same class, which was nice too, but the little thoughtful gifts still make me feel like I was the best teacher

A framed picture a child had drawn.
A pack of my favourite haribo
A new water cup because the child had noticed I had broken mine in class
Notebooks and pens (can never have enough)
Chocolate (the other teachers iny team and myself would save it all up and then we would have a stash of chocolate to keep us going through the year)
A bottle of Coca-Cola

One lovely family always brought me home made fudge which I usually ate before getting home on the last day of term! Also echo what others have said about a letter or card saying what I had done for their child. I kept many of those and have a big box full. I also had a very beautiful Emma Bridgewater vase as a joint present from my Year 6 parents one year - a pattern that I really loved.

A bottle of champagne.

I far prefer 'ordinary' chocolate- would pick malteasers or cadburys etc over a box of chocolates! But I'd agree with the others - it's the really personal stuff like lovely notes/cards. Most inventive present ever was year 13 politics class gave me a dartboard with pictures of all the famous people they've hated throughout the course stuck round the edge!! Always love stationary. Worst thing to be given (for me) are candles - I have small a children - I never light candles!!

I love any gifts and really appreciate them, but
I especially like the things where children have remembered things about you. I've got plants in my garden that remind me if the children who gave them to me, and I once had a hammer that has screwdrivers inside it which I love! I also still use a mug with a lamb on it which was given to me in 1994 from a child who was from a family of sheep farmers.

Heart felt card and I would llove an email to the head saying how lovely I was!
I've had loads of trinkets and photo frames etc but words get me everytime

Definitely a card, with a sincere message - that means more than anything.

I forgot! One year when I worked in a posh school they got me Royal Opera House vouchers. Now they could easily afford it but I was actually rather touched that a bunch of teenagers remembered I liked opera -- my family's never got me theatre or opera tokens.

I also liked the KitKat selection pack recalling my lesson themed around KitKats (this was when they used to be nice).

• a hand written personalised card/ letter
• a Christmas tree decoration (obs wrong time of year!)
• a gift voucher for a massage
• any other gift voucher (always useful)
• a (cheap, small) hamper of my favourite things: cheese & diet coke (obviously hard if you don't know the teacher well)
• a jar of sweets
• chocolate
• flowers
• a plant
• alcohol
• a leather bound notebook I now use to write all my recipes in
• a personalised 'Mrs X' s' notebook that I kept on my desk

The smallest of small gestures is all it takes. A fredo bar was as gratefully received as a box of expensive chocolates.

Some years I might get way too many boxes of chocolates when I was on a diet, or get flowers when I was heading off the next day on holiday. But I'd always 1) be so, so appreciative of the gesture and 2) ensure that gifts were passed on to elderly neighbours or friends/ family who would get a lot of joy from them.

The only gift type that stands out that, whilst still appreciating the sentiment, I didn't ever get any use out of, were 'bath things'.