To not understand end of year gifts for teachers?

[Threecactusplants]

That time is upon us.
My DS’s class WhatsApp ‘admin’ has asked if people want to contribute towards a voucher for the teacher - suggested donation £10 each.
AIBU but the teachers are being paid for this job, they’re not doing it voluntarily.
Okay I understand if the child is leaving/in last year or the teacher is leaving.

To be honest, I haven’t been hugely impressed this year, DS’s teacher has been quite slack and we have had very little communication. He’s been happy going to school which is the main thing but I probably would have got a small card or asked him to make one. It’s only a small class of 21 so if I don’t contribute it’ll be obvious.

You can't just change a grade like that, or not one that matters. External moderation of any teacher assessed grades will pick it up if it's at exam level. Inflating predictions would (a) need to be QAed by leadership and probably questioned and (b) doing the child a disservice if they ended up with offers they couldn't achieve.

Prefects are usually chosen by a group of teachers, and in any case, are fairly meaningless to be honest. References again rarely done by a single teacher. Personalised tuition? In your own time? Would need to be quite the bribe.

This month we already had collections for class reps, teachers (share job), TAs, kitchen staff, person doing social media, headteacher and her family… And we had the same collection at Christmas

21 is it a private school?

I worked in a school once and was surprised and shocked, how much they get - and that most of it was left in the staff room for people to just help themselves to, sweets, chocolates, biscuits, flowers, cakes, daft gifts. A lot was left in the fridge to go off over the holidays, think fresh cakes and cookies. Boxed biscuits and sweets were left out for maintenance staff to help themselves. Anything left of any use was put into the raffle cupboard for use at the next fundraiser.

I would send a card

This is not comparable.

That's one mum paying for one spa voucher for 1 dance teacher.

This thread is about class gifts as a whole. 1 teacher receiving a voucher from 30 people is not the same in any league.

None of these things are things tho
Private schools don't care about references. They care about fees, entrance interviews and or entrance exams

Fail to ace? What does that even mean?

You sound like you're writing a novel.

Haven’t read the whole thread but large gifts need to be declared at school if over £50 and teachers always need board marker pens or whiteboard pens. They will always get used!

In my country you're not supposed to give gifts that are worth too much, although how much is too much is never specified, because teachers are public servants and accepting costly gifts could be considered accepting bribes*, so teacher gifts are mostly flowers, chocolates or cards. That said, when DD finished primary school one of the parents organised a collection and gave her teacher and TA a gift basket and voucher each, but as they were all leaving the school it couldn't be considered bribery as their teacher wouldn't be teaching them again. It was a special gift because they had had the same teacher and TA for the last 4 years of primary and they had both been absolutely wonderful, my DD still talks fondly of them.

*grades are determined solely by teachers here, there's no external exams only exams the teacher sets and grades themselves so potentially a teacher could be bribed to give a child better grades the next year, as often a class will have the same teacher for several years, or even throughout the whole of primary. Not that I think there would be many teachers that would do that!

Reading this thread was worth it for this comment 😂

Yeah, at our school it's just a load of cash from the parents. I'm sure the teachers don't say mind at all but they get the same amount of money whatever job they do or class they have so its probably not very meaningful. I'd rather it was spread out with the staff especially in the office they do loads for the kids. It's more of a virtue signal when they hand £300 over

When did end of year gifts for the teacher become the norm?
I know it was a done thing when my ds1 was in reception, He is in his nearly 30 so 25 years ago it was normal.

The only gift that would be a bribe for me would be a whole class set of glue sticks…

I think just say I'm buying my own gift. It's a bit cheeky of those collectors to assume everyone can afford £10. They can't.

It's just a voucher put inside a card saying thank you for being a great teacher alongside all the children's names. No requests for anything as a consequence for recieving the gift.

Jesus 😂😂😂

I’m getting the class gifts this year, donations have varied from £25-£2. It doesn’t matter what amount is donated it’s just a thank you from all the children who have spent a year with their teacher and will be sad to move on (in most cases, I imagine.)

It wasn’t a thing years ago, when my kids were at school. They’re mid 40’s now. A small card from the child was enough.

I've never bought gifts for teachers, ffs they are being paid to be there, and we pay taxes for schooling already. I'm sure they are pretty embarrassed to receive gifts - most of the present givers are the show off types who love shopping, it's like a weird cult that continues every year, because 'they see other people doing it.

£10 each is excessive if everyone contributes

I think asking for a tenner is daft. I'm putting in £3 for teacher and TAs and the class are buying vouchers for local shops. Every child's name will be on the card, whether their parent donated or not.

Am very impressed with the woman organising - WhatsApp group started getting out of control with people saying they had donated and it's was £15. She politely but firmly said she thought £2-3 was usual and that everyone was welcome to donate anonymously through the link she provided and all children would be included.

The school is great, I'm happy for the teachers and assistants to get a small gift but I'm even happier that parents/children don't feel like shit or get left out.

This happens at my children’s school but it’s optional, you don’t need to contribute if you don’t want to. I actually organised it myself a couple of times and got lots of thank yous, nobody raised an issue with it.

If the organiser is going round pressurising individuals to contribute then that’s obviously not on but as long as they’re not doing that I don’t see what the issue is.

You don’t have to contribute? But I think teachers are chronically underpaid for a job that holds a huge amount of responsibility under intense scrutiny. I like to give the teachers a card and a small voucher to acknowledge that I ‘get it’ and am grateful they do the job. Teachers are leaving in droves.. it’s quite scary tbh.

As the wife of a teacher, please don’t buy a mug! I’ve got a cupboard full of the bloody things! 😂 (I’m only joking!)
My husband appreciates every gift he gets, but as a senior school teacher he only gets a few. What he really appreciates is a card, he’s kept every one he’s ever received.

Entirely up to you whether you contribute - as a parent I think it’s great saves me faff and saves me getting tat for the tch/ ta or spending more than I want as £5 voucher seems cheap.

As a teacher though I don’t think a gift is necessary, but I think a collected present from parents is a much better idea than getting a mug, notepad, keyring, lots of chocolates from individual parents. I used last years gift voucher to go towards a watch and some perfume as its was £75!

The reason for giving a teacher gift is because nearly all teachers (including those you think are "quite slack") are doing a considerable amount of extra work off good will. Most jobs, if you work extra hours, you get paid (or the pay to begin with is enough to justify the extra hours) and if you volunteer for extra tasks then you have a higher chance of promotion. That's not the case with teaching, or with many other public service roles, like nursing.

You give a gift to say that you've noticed and you appreciate it. People often send gifts to nurses, leave a tip for the bin man, etc., and teaching is in the same vein.

You don't have to, especially if you don't, in fact, appreciate that specific teacher.

It's worth considering that many things that schools do, such as residential trips and after school concerts, wouldn't happen at all without the good will of the teaching staff.