Parent rep gifts?!

[Frazzledbyfam]

Are parent rep gifts now really a thing? One private school teacher told me the parent rep for her class takes a commission from the class whipround and got more in vouchers than the teacher. Anyone else come across similar?!

I never even heard of a parent rep!

I've never heard of that in 20 years of working in schools (until 3 years ago).

Err no! Someone is taking the piss

wtf?

Agreed. Of course this isn't a thing, anyone claiming otherwise is just using it as an excuse to pocket some extra pounds.

We did a small token gift (box of chocs) for our rep. Which is fine as they’ve been great, and it was organised by the person who will be rep next year.

But more than that is not cool.

That's not commission. That's theft.

Thanks for your thoughts. I was pretty shocked. Glad I’m not alone in that!

That’s some commission if they get more in vouchers than the teacher. How does that work?

Some classes might give a class gift where a lot of parents donate so they can give a bigger gift. One or two parents might volunteer to organise. They certainly would not take a cut of the money donated. That's called stealing. If it's too much hassle, they shouldn't volunteer to do it.

However, a lot give individual gifts.

I really don’t understand the logistics of how a “commission” amounts to more than the total of the vouchers?

I organised a class gift this year and spent all the money on vouchers for the teacher. No commission!

I was a parent rep in Year 5 and collected about £250 for the teacher and obviously it all went to him. Unbeknown to me, the parents had arranged a separate collection for me, which was totally unexpected and quite overwhelming and I received gifts of over £150 and a lovely card with heartfelt words, which I really appreciated. I worked hard as a rep, but honestly didn't expect anything in return.

Yes - in response to rhe original post - that is shocking!!!!!!