How much is the contribution per family for teachers' end of year gifts at your school?

[AlternativelyWired]

I haven't really thought about this before in any depth. Sometimes the organiser has said £5, this year it was £10. The gifts are usually vouchers for John Lewis plus extra items like candles, beauty items, chocolates. This year £340 was collected for dividing between 2 teachers and 3 TAs on a pro rata type basis. Some families do their own thing and give money to the collection. There's usually a collection at Christmas too. Does every school do these collections twice a year? It's voluntary but then there's a list of those who have donated so anyone who can't afford it or doesn't want to join in is highlighted by their absence.

I've done this for my dd teacher and staff we did £5 each for the teacher I also did £5 for the TA, though not as many contributed to the TA.

I think it's a great idea and saves on the boxes of chocolate teacher mugs etc.

Though I'm also giving the teacher and TA a bottle of wine each.

We don't do this.

I got my DDs teacher a nice candle and a card.

The class WhatsApp is quite useful for the very reason that we get bombarded with emails from school that a quick 'don't forget they have to bring X today!' on the morning is a useful reminder to many parents. I've probably been lucky with mine as I can imagine they could be annoying but ours is just used for last minute reminders or if anyone has a question about school. Really helpful to pose questions to the group in the hope that someone with older siblings at the school can shed their wisdom, for example. I'm a working parent and rarely at the school gate and I think it's actually most useful for us, as a way of staying in touch with what's going on in their class and what to remember when you're trying to juggle so much.

Why would you need the "wisdom" of the parents of older kids? Surely their information wouldn't be relevant as they're in different years?

And surely it's just another method of bombarding people with information? I don't need more notifications in my life! I need fewer! A group like that would end up on mute permanently, thus defeating its purpose.

I don't find myself at a disadvantage in terms of information because I'm not at the school gates often because that isn't how information is given out. It's all done electronically or by hard copy.

A WhatsApp group to me is only any use if that's the main method of communication. Plus I'd be concerned about people giving out duff info.

I didn't do the collective gift as I wasn't in the clique! So always bought my own - usually a bottle of wine for the teacher and chocolates for the TA.

Our school wouldn't dream of having anything like this.

Parents do their own thing whether that be nothing at-all, card, small gift and card, flowers, whatever...

I spend £1.50 on each teacher/TA and a dads where my kids
Wrote lovely messages.

We give £5 per child. This covers all staff working in each class. My son’s class had four members of staff this year so it meant that they each got a nice gift at a fraction of the cost of, say a bottle of wine each per family. I was happy to
contribute. I agree that much more than that is a lot!

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I spent £1.50 on each teacher/TA and a card each where my kids wrote lovely messages.

I'm a teacher and that's what my kids do. Honestly think the collection carry on is ridiculous.

My son attends a private school and has just finished Year 5. I was the class rep and there was no obligation at all to contribute, but some parents prefer to give to a joint fund. Contributions ranged from £10 - £25 for the form teacher's end of year gift.

I love it when someone organises a collection! Never had one stipulate an amount, just whatever people want. Ones I've contributed to have written names in the card from those it's from as it's been around half the class (children signed card themselves). I did organise a retirement gift once and 26/30 contributed so that was from the whole class.

Not donated to anything like this for years.
But, I was thinking that a nice idea for a teacher could be one of those “savings” money boxes, that you have to smash to get the money out. Donations would be private, and it could have “holiday fund”, “wedding fund”, “handbag fund” or whatever was appropriate on it 🤷‍♀️

I work as a TA - obviously I would hate for someone to feel that they had to get me a gift or similar, especially if it means they themselves will struggle financially.
however, if people want to get a gift I have a preference for a collection, because I would honestly rather than one bigger thing than lots of little things, with all the extra expense of gift bags etc. For example I’ve had a bottle of my favourite gin, or a piece of jewellery, which I have cherished.
i do think tacher / ta gift giving can be a bit of a minefield though, because people can feel pressured into giving when they don’t want to / can’t afford, and in many respects I’d rather kids just wrote a card or similar. Then there’s the issue of parents only giving to teachers and not TAs, which is tricky because it can make us feel undervalued (and certainly in my school I work with all the kids at different times) but again, if a parent can only afford one gift they probably know the teacher better than the TA…

i honestly think it would be better if the whole practice just died out!!

We give £20 between a teacher and three TAs. It’s only a fiver per person and I think it’s fair

We do this at school, organised through the class WhatsApp group. In one year group it was always £5, apart from in Y6 when it was £25. In the other it was nearly always £10, even when the teacher had only started at February. There are 33 children in each class so they collect quite a lot that is split between the teachers and TAs.

I forgot to add, our collections were twice a year with Christmas too. And still at the end of term a lot of parents were coming in with flowers and gift bags, even though they’d also chipped in to the class collection.

I put £20 in each of two class whips - shared between a teacher and two TAs/two p/t teachers and one TA. I'm a single mum-of-three so it was a bit painful but I'm also a TA and got a £70 voucher and various other small gifts and cards, which was unexpected but delightful.

I think it sounds a bit over the top. My kids primary school didn't have this, we just bought a small token gift and a card. Something like a bar of chocolate, scented candle, hand-wash.

I work in secondary and gifts are rare which is fine. What is lovely is on the rare occasion you get a thank you email from a parent. Usually all we get are complaints.

@SmellyWellyWoo people with older siblings can tell you useful detail about how things actually work that school communications don't always cover, based on what happened when those siblings were in that year group. For example, how long the end of year service takes, which helped me work out how much toddler entertainment to pack. Obviously it's most helpful in reception, but stuff occasionally still comes up in older years.

Based on responses on the groups I'm on, a lot of people struggle to take things in from the school communications and rely on WhatsApp group reminders! I think it's because the school stuff assumed you sit down with a calendar and write all the dates down from the newsletters, they don't reliably do day or so before reminder.

I am a TA. Please don’t worry. Some parents club together but colleagues and I certainly don’t expect anything.
My favourite end of term gift was a card from a little boy who thanked me for helping him learn to tell the time. Priceless.

Fucking madness. Fortunately never had any of that bullshit going on at my daughter's schools.

We do at Christmas and end of year.

There's no set amount or judgement but generally it's £10 each. No judgement from anyone who puts in less.

I think you've maybe read a comment and taken it totally the wrong way?

The way it's sorted in our school is each child gets given a label to write a thank you to the teacher on and then that gets stuck into the card and given with the gifts.

So yes it says who the joint gift is from but those who didn't do joint will still be giving in a card/gift anyway.

Don't see the issue. Just means they wanted to do something different.

Once a year, just contribute what you want - I usually do £10 for each Dc . They raised over £400 for youngest not sure about other

I don’t usually give it much thought but it is quite a lot

State school no pressure at all, gift from everyone, private probably a bit more social pressure but just imo, can’t qualify it

Usually £5 but for the last year so. Leavers was £10. We do it end of year and Christmas. There is a card that Al other kids write in regardless of who contributed and there is no list of who did or did not contribute to the collection.