End-of-year class gift drama

[bathroomadviceneeded]

My DS is in Year 1, and some parents from his class are trying to organise a group gift for his two teachers (it's a job share, so both teachers are part time).

The organiser of the gift has sent a message in the class group chat with the name of the student and how much they have contributed for the gift. Ranging from 10-40 pounds depending on the family. Next to the names families that didn't contribute there was written 'nothing'.
e.g. John - 30
Thomas - Nothing
Camille - 20
etc.

This upset a lot of parents and the group is blowing up. The organiser also rang each parent individually to ask if they would contribute to the gift. The current amount is 355 pounds, which I think is a very large amount for an end of year gift, even when split between two teachers. I'm a teacher and usually only get a few boxes of chocolates, and wouldn't expect anything more.

I think this is insane behaviour and publishing the amounts people gave is really problematic.

AIBU - This is completely normal and you should suck it up if you aren't the one organising the gift
Not unreasonable - This is insane and totally inappropriate for an end-of-year gift.

I thought the point of group gifts was to spend overall less as a group than you’d have to spend individually?

I’d post to say we are going to be doing individual gifts for the teachers, as I’m sure are many others and so please remove my name from the list.

Id honestly be tempted to let the school know too because £200 a teacher seems really a lot and it’s disgusting how this is being handled.

Appalling, and way too much for end of year gift, basically a tip, for two people just doing their jobs. Or maybe I am massively out of touch.

Only an arsehole would name and shame like this.

Are you in the US? Do you mean Public (Eton etc) or state school (UK).

Totally out of order either way.

My youngest school has an absolute blanket ban on all gifts to individual staff. Anything edible gets put in the staffroom for all to share, alcohol gets returned to the sender and anything like cash gets returned to sender or donated.

The only exception to this rule was when the hugely popular headteacher died suddenly. Even then, the money was used to buy a 'friendship bench' for the school playground with a plaque explaining about the headteacher and how a friendship bench works (basically if a child is alone or needs a friend they sit on the bench and someone will come and be their friend- it works really well and is known as the Mrs X bench)

Naming and shaming is absolutely unacceptable.

£5 per child per teacher, opt out if you choose, gift cards for total. It does not need to be a drama.

Absolutely appalling behaviour. The teachers would have appreciated some kind words throughout the year and a small, token gift. The rest donated to a charity of their choice.

What the hell is wrong with people?

That is awful!

I would also check if the teachers are even allowed to accept a monetary gift of this amount. I am a teacher myself and would feel extremely uncomfortable with this.

Those saying maybe they wanted a clear record so no accusations of pocketing some, why mention those who didn’t contribute ? Smacks of shaming them to
me !

It is unreasonable, but it is also inevitably an unfair system. Some parents often don't give anything, simply because they are too busy and miss the collection, not because they are poor. Others don't agree with 'tipping' a teacher or prefer to give a separate gift. Yet they get to have their name on the card attached to the present, which does irk slightly. However, you cannot have a situation where someone who cannot afford to give so much is shamed publicly. I suspect that they didn't think and were just recording the amounts collected, maybe as a type of receipt. However, if people aren't organising themselves, which is a thankless task, then they shouldn't complain too much either.

I do amazon gift cards for my child’s school with a card they’ve made and then they can choose what to spend it on. No waste either! And you can choose the amount you’re comfortable spending. I’d hate to be a teacher and get glue sticks etc

I would alert the head as to what was going on.

That’s so bad. It needs to be signed off from all and no naming and shaming

I've just organised something similar for my daughter's and son's classes. For the second time this school year each. There are six teachers involved and let me categorically let you know that it's an absolute ball ache and I only do it so that the teachers get a useful voucher vs 25 bottles of hand cream. I have left the option wide open for someone else to do it and nobody ever steps forward.

However I send a max of three reminders after asking for interest in the first instance and never dictate an amount and make it very clear it's voluntary.

Yeah Tesco seems expensive.
Asda sell cards less than a quid though.

One of the best gifts I ever had was from a little boy in Y1, it was some bubble bath in a bottle shaped to look like a knight in armour (!) the reason I remember it is because I know he chose it, and I know he chose it because he liked it and would have wanted one just like it for himself, which is why I get a warm feeling inside when I remember it. To be honest I am hard pressed to remember other gifts, but that one has stuck.

Thank goodness I left before this class gift thing took hold, many of the parents in my schools were hard pressed financially, and many were not familiar with UK schools and might not have not realised that this was not something they needed to be part of. They also had quite large families so a casual fiver or tenner per child would have added up to a considerable amount.

Why not glue sticks - many schools don’t have the budget to provide arts and crafts materials so teachers spend their own personal money on providing materials for activities.

I voted YABU because, while listing amounts given was a tone deaf/inappropriate thing to do, I have a lot of sympathy for the people responsible for collecting money for these gifts. It’s a thankless task and other parents, even the ones who can well afford it, often “forget” or leave it to the last minute to contribute. To me it sounds like someone was doing their best to give the teachers a good send off while also trying to being fair to the parents who had contributed (by reminding the ones who hadn’t yet), and was just cack handed about it.

As for amounts, it doesn’t sound like there was any minimum donation demanded, which is good. £300 ish doesn’t sound unreasonable to me for a collection - class of 30 kids, a tenner on average each for the whole year, split between two staff. If I were a teacher I would rather a £150 voucher for M&S than thirty boxes of Matchmakers or bottles of body lotion.

Where I draw the line is when you are told how much to donate. This once happened to me - I think we were asked for £100 each in a Reception class of 17 to cover teacher and TA’s birthday, Xmas and end of year gifts.

Wow 😮

Deeply unpleasant behaviour. Bullying actually.

Please do say something especially as you are leaving anyway.

There's a cost of living crisis, to single out individuals is cruel when they might just be doing their own thing

We weren’t allowed to accept expensive gifts in one of my schools. That amount is ridiculous. I get boxes of chocolate or bottles of wine, bath stuff, all very lovely but certainly not in this price range.

How dare they! I would speak to the head about this, it is completely inappropriate.

Ouch no this isn't on. All donation amounts should be anonymous and they should not be putting 'nothing' next to the ones who aren't contributing.

I would leave the group and buy 2 cards and chocolates to give individually to the teacher. Plus another card/chocolates for the TA if there is one.