thread about a thread so shoot me- what exactly do you buy teachers at end of year?

[knittedbreast]

OK so my ds is in reception and i (cringe) didnt know you were supposed to buy teachers end of year gifts.

I feel quite bad now as his nursery (part of the school) had the most amazing teachers and i didnt get them anything :( i just didnt think.

So some questions:

what do you buy the teacher?

If you are considering wine how do you know if its appropriate -what if it turns out they dont drink? how can you be sure?

lastly, how and when do you give them the present? do you send your child in with it? seems a bit inapropriate to send a 5 year in with a bottle of wine you know

Thanky wanky

[tethersend]

Six weeks away from your children is the gift which keeps on giving.

[scottishmummy]

well aye school is free childminding service
cheaper than nursery,so a wee biscuit for teacher doesn't go amiss

[sheepgomeep]

nothing because I'm always broke

Although I always add to collections if teacher leaving/retiring/bereavement etc.

I will make an exception this year possibly and buy a thank you card as ds is going to high school this time

[scottishmummy]

bemused at teacher sayingh they "expect"
wow thats a mighty sense of entitlement for doing your job

[DarftApeth]

We do a class collection for teacher and TAs and give vouchers for a huge shopping centre that is nearby. The vouchers can be used for shops and restaurants in there.

They will also get a large bouquet of flowers and an informal class photo, laminated with a message of thanks and all the children's names, with the voucher.

There has been a slight contretemps in another class, where the parent doing the collection wants to spend £400 on a pen for the teacher. Teacher is in her 20s and most other parents think a handbag or shoes would be more appropriate!

Most teachers I know would rather a simple homemade card or voucher than tat smellies or mugs, etc. Many people have allergies to smellies and nuts - you also need to be careful about chocolates.

[scottishmummy]

£4oo on teacher?!too much and v crawly bum lick imo
an acknowledgement thank you gift by all means but £4oo is obscence

[Riveninside]

400 quid! Only if they guarantee all As at A level

[Riveninside]

MrsKravitz. It is so true. At the ti e it seems all intense and important, a few years later they recall none of the teachers and very few of the friends. Once they are teens they cant even remember what school hey went too!

[scottishmummy]

and £4oo on bag or shoes is icky inappropriate
a profssional should refuse such an oestantious amount, its too much
and smacks of pushy blng parents sucking up to teacher.

[DarftApeth]

£400 is obscene! Unfortunately, it is par for the course with some of the alpha parents who are very into gestures of this type.

Luckily the parents in both my dcs classes are much more tight fisted down to earth - usually led by my look of horror if anyone suggests an outrageous amount for each of us to give towards the collection

[scottishmummy]

oh i know it goes on. i dont partake.no way
i think the wags and pushy parents think it ingratiates them
imo lowers my opinion of such parents,and tbh of a teacher accepting ostentatious. gift

[Riveninside]

Dont they have to declare gifts like that for tax?

[BoattoBolivia]

scottishmummy who said they expected presents?
£400 is totally ridiculous. In a class of 30 that is £13 per child, if everybody contributes. That would have to very one fantastic teacher and would make me feel very, very uncomfortable! Really, small and homemade is best.

[hockeyforjockeys]

If you are going to do gifts, just don't do what one set of parents did at my previous school. A couple of the alpha mummies decided that it would be better to do a mass charity donation to a charity of their choosing rather than get anything for us. Fine their choice (and I really don't expect anything, but I always love my end of year choccies), the head of year was a bit when said mummies marched up to her a few weeks before the end of term and told her this was happening. It was a charity that we wouldn't particularly choose to support, but again their choice. Last day of term comes and the head of year finds a big bag of cash dumped on her desk with a note asking her to make the donation. So no pressies for any of us and extra work for the head of year who was planning on making a hasty exit at 3.30. We all very nearly absconded to the pub with the loot

[HappyMummyOfOne]

Hockey what a bad choice and unfair on the head to be expected to do the work.

Giving to charity is personal, I wouldnt dream of giving to charity on somebody elses part unless it had been specifically requested. Charity gifts in the main are about the sender not the receiver.

[hockeyforjockeys]

Happy that's why we were a bit pissed off with it. We all agreed that if they had come and asked us what charity we would like to donate to then it would of actually been a token of appreciation.

[queenmaeve]

A wee boy once brought me in a packet of jammie dodgers that he'd obviously went and bought himself he came from a bad background. I've never forgotten it. Honestly a card with some nice words on it mean everything, its always nice to hear if the child had a good year in your class.

[scottishmummy]

the alpha parents are the worst."suggesting" excessive amounts hectoring parents for donation.and imo any teacher who accepts these obviously obscene gift amounts is skating on wrong side of dubious. cycling christ "£400" is outrageous

other public sector workers simply would not be allowed at accept anything near those kind of amounts,would have to flag it up

[Collision]

We thought we would get the male teacher a Waterstones voucher and the female teacher an M&S voucher so she can buy food or wine or clothes.

TA's get wine as that is what they like and I will make cakes for a few others in school.

[thegruffalosma]

My friend works in a private school and the teachers there always get something like a designer handbag with collection money as well as stuff like expensive perfume for individual gifts.

[prettybird]

Ds has just finished P6 (=Y5) and at his request (partly becasue he has had input from a number of teachers because of the way that the school allocates its reources) I made up 5 pretty bags of home-made tablet (a Scottish speciality: a crodd between toffee and fudge) and 5 bags of 4 chocolate chip cookies plus 4 chewy double chocolate chip cookies (fabulous fool-proof recipes off Mumsnet). He took them down in a big bag and gave them to his "main" teacher. I had to pop into the school at the end (to pick up the bag because he had forgotten to ask for it back ) and the depute head (he was also one of his teachers) thanked me profusely and said that the tablet was fabulous (it's actually quite difficult to make and took me 8 batches to get right but that is a whole other story )

I packaged them nicely so that they could eat them themselves - or give away if they didn't want them were on a diet.

In the past I have got vases or nice candles for the teachers - tihs year it ds was old enough and assertive enough to ask for what he wanted to give even if he didn't actually help me making what HE wanted to give )

To be fair, he also spent hours writing and drawing a special comic strip story for his "main" teacher as he said he had always been telling her about the comics he wrote during art and she had never seen an example. He even wrote in it "Dedicated to Ms XX, my brilliant teacher" :)

[flower24]

Wine wine wine!
Or vouchers are great- Marks and Spencer the best, trust me, im a primary teacher.
Althought my fave pressie was when a little girl saw all the other kids giving me things and so took off the plastic ring she was wearing (from one of those 20p machines) and gave it to me. I wore it all day then when it came to home time she asked for it back! hilarious! bless her little Kaci, ahh kids. x

[Cookster]

Flower 24 - perhaps a book on etiquette would be a good idea for you too. PLEASE think about giving wine or Marks & Spencer vouchers. We are always grateful for a kind thought etc. Leading by example for children who don't have the right sort of support would be a very good skill for primary school teachers to adopt. I hope you agree.

[Shaxx]

For ds1's reception class last year, I gave a pack of books as the teachers were saying that there wasn't enough nice and interesting books for the kids. They were so touched, his teacher started crying (I also gave biscuits for the staff).
Not sure what to do this year. I thought about giving a £5 Amazon voucher in a card made by ds. I know its not much but £5 always gets you a book in Amazon.

[musicposy]

My favourite presents - I was a primary school teacher for many years - were always those where the children had made something really strange pretty out of household items. Homemade cards, and Blue Peter kind of stuff. Now I'm not saying I kept all of it for eternity, but I loved the fact the children had put their heart and soul into doing it for me. Much more meaningful than clubbing together and spending £400 which would have left me feeling very embarrassed.

Book vouchers were lovely, as I could buy a good read for the holidays. I certainly wouldn't worry about it being enough to buy a whole book. I think it would be a pretty ungrateful teacher who expected stuff or didn't think it was the thought that was important, so don't fret too much!