to not give money or presents to any staff at my child's school

[definetlynotbored]

I refuse to contribute to staff donations, presents for teachers, staff birthdays etc etc etc.

If others want to do it thats fine. But the day I spend my money buying a present for my child's teacher (who gets paid to teach him) is the day I am in a grave.

It's completely and utterly unnecessary. Would be seen as highly inappropriate in my culture and is just silly.

I would be the first person to help anyone out in a crisis, but I don't give presents or money to class donations/teachers presents and never will and I'm not a mean person...honestly!

I'm not the only one surely? .

I hope you take the trouble to give positive feedback if you are pleased with the teacher's work. That's more appreciated than gifts would be. I wish more people would make the effort.

Teachers get gifts because parents know how hard the job can be, how many unpaid hours the teachers work and how much of the their own (the teacher's) money is spent making their child's education more interesting. Teachers buy the kids gifts too. If you don't want to give, don't give.

I do titter at the ' genuine affection, gone the extra mile' comments.
It is their job , they chose to teach

Do you titter at all employees who go above and beyond their duties kilmuir?

Yes they do choose to teach it is just nice to show appreciation if you want to it shouldnt be a forced donation though that seems forced and false,

Yanbu and you should never feel pressured into giving money. I hate the idea of class collections for that reason. It should always be a personal choice and not something that is expected. I am touched by any presents I receive but would never ever think less of any family that didn't give a present.

However, I do believe that every parent and child should at least say thank you. (I'm sure you do OP). I have taught some children for a year and at the end they and their parents have just walked away without even a quick 'Thanks for teaching him/her.' I do find that rude. What I value most are the handwritten cards that I've sometimes received saying that they feel I've made a real difference to their child. Makes it all worthwhile

I'm not keen on anything beyond token gifts or gifts that can be shared but many people in all sorts of jobs including teaching go way above and beyond. I don't see why tittering about the concept is necessary.

As an ex-teacher I agree with the OP 100%.
I really disliked getting gifts from the pupils.
I appreciated the Christmas cards and would have liked the odd thank you maybe, but not the sometimes expensive gifts I received which were a waste of parent's money. Toiletries I didn't like the smell of, wine when I hardly drink, chocolates when I was on a diet and so on.
I was paid for what I did. Sometimes the parents got a bit competitive over the gifts and I am sure that some of them earned less than I did.

What culture is this then ? Just out of interest ? Giving a gift to teachers is not a new thing. I used to take an apple to my teacher before I moved to the uk many years ago. She would have so much fruit from the students. Why is that so terrible?

Teachers are paid for and choose to TEACH. We don't choose to wipe tears, sort friendships, run clubs and plays, deal with bullying, teach manners, deal with emotionally challenged kids, give advice (to kids and parents) ..... it is an endless list. We don't choose to do these things. - these are all extra to the job description and we do them because we care about the children we teach.

Totally agree with you OP and I made a similar point on another thread.

I actually think it is unprofessional of teachers to accept gifts (and there is actually a tax liability on 'gifts in kind' but I bet no teacher ever declares it). I have worked in a number of organisations were we expressly told NOT to accept gifts and if we did we had to declare them, pay the 'value' of the gift to the company charity fund or donate the gift to a charity.

Tipping waiters/taxi drivers is a completely different matter.

I have never felt pressurised into buying a teacher gift and my DS has never been bothered (I do write a personal letter to those that I think have been particularly helpful). Some parents do feel pressurised into giving presents and it is clearly not just to those teachers who really gone 'above and beyond expectations' but to every teacher in the school.

The saddest thing I saw (& I've mentioned this before) was a mother who I know regularly uses the Food Bank in our local town struggling along to school with a huge bouquet for a teacher and later telling me she felt 'obliged' to buy it. .

Oh and I am secondary and we don't get gifts - but I always contributed to my son's primary collections or bought an individual gift

I like the approach a lot of teachers locally have adopted, and it seems to be spreading.
Teachers and ta's actively discourage gifts. They let it be known that IF a family want to buy a gift, donate to a charity, the school fund or local food bank instead.

Ragwort teachers have to declare if a gift is over a certain value. All teachers have to fill in a form every year by law.

piece - I am not knocking teachers but if you go into teaching you know you have all those aspects of the job.

Every, single job has parts of it that are not written in the job description.

I work in retail - no where in my job description does it say I have to remove pigeons from the shop floor, clear up excrement when a customer has an accident in store, deal with people who have alzheimers and don't know what they are buying/where they are but I do all that because I am a human being.

I think Ragwort is spot on.

That is an excellent idea bloddyteenagers - I hope it catches on.

I do give gifts but that is because I am lucky enough to be able to afford to give gifts (potted plants usually) and because we are also lucky enough to have DS in a truly lovely little school where they give a great deal of personal care and attention to him. I do value that.

I honestly do not care if other people give gifts or not- it's irrelevant to me.

The collections in our primary are usually £5 per child in each class and we split that between the teacher and 2-3 (sometimes 4!) TA's.

Everyone, in my experience, jumps at that as it saves the hassle and each teacher and assistant gets a decent present.

If people don't want to contribute then that's fine, but we still make sure their name is on the card, regardless.

I'd hate to be presumptuous but I would have thought that £5 is manageable, when it covers so many teachers? I know some schools do £10 but I think that's too much.

I'll have all mine at secondary soon and I must admit, I won't miss the collection!

The saddest thing I saw (& I've mentioned this before) was a mother who I know regularly uses the Food Bank in our local town struggling along to school with a huge bouquet for a teacher and later telling me she felt 'obliged' to buy it

Of course this happened.

Just to add that all my kids' teachers have been lovely and often go over and above what they're paid for.

DSis is a teacher. One hot day they took the children out for a day trip. There was an ice-cream van and a few of the children had money with them and went to buy ice-creams. The teachers knew that the parents of others simply couldn't afford to give them extra money, so they clubbed together and bought ice creams for them. One of her colleagues bought uniform for a little boy whose clothes were in holes. A couple of others went on a residential trip (for which they were paid no extra) and had to take it in turns getting up during the night to a child who was having nightmares, another who was wetting the bed, and another who needed medication checked. When my children were in primary, a number of their teachers gave up several hours of their free time to put on wonderful school plays which the children and their parents thoroughly enjoyed.

Do you think all of those teachers are fully paid for everything they do?

My mum has been a teacher for 25+ years in primary schools in Canada. I can't tell you the number of mugs she takes to the charity shop every Christmas and end of year. We never had to buy body lotion/soap/shower gel/etc as kids, and we always got to nibble at the boxes of chocolates and biscuits.

There were two presents that stick out in my mind: one was a beautiful wall hanging from a Korean exchange student; the meaning of it had something to do with good luck and having many sons. This was pretty funny considering my mum was well past child-bearing years.

The other was from a little boy (let's call him 'Jesse'). One of Jesse's parents was dead, other in prison, he lived with grandma who was trying her best but struggling. He gave my mum a teabag and a biscuit out of his own lunchbag, because my mum is English and loves tea and a biscuit. This remains her favourite gift from a student.

I don't think you're being entirely unreasonable, as I've witnessed some rather silly and competitive gift-giving. Depending on your kids' ages, a handmade card is a nice gesture. What my sister and I used to do was buy fruit and coloured cellophane, make a wreath out of it, and tie it up with a big ribbon.

Tipping waiters/taxi drivers is a completely different matter.

So you would give a little something to thank someone who served you during one meal, or drove you on one journey, even though they're "just doing their jobs", but you wouldn't consider it appropriate to give a similar token of your appreciation to a teacher, who has probably spent many hours over the course of a year, trying to help and support your child, because they're just doing their job?

Your choice, but I don't really understand the logic...

Ragwort teachers have to declare if a gift is over a certain value. All teachers have to fill in a form every year by law.

What's the value? I've never been asked to fill in a form that I can recall. But then I've never been given particularly valuable gifts.
I would be fully supportive of an initiative like bloodyteenagers suggests to encourage parents to donate instead of giving a gift, but I'm not sure how that would go down with the parents.