Christmas gifts for teachers ?

[JoannaVictoria]

People’s thoughts on teacher gifts at Christmas?

feeling the pressure as I know other parents are doing so.

a bit of background , 7 kids in total, not a bad income but a house move coming in early January so being as careful as possible. 5 kids in school, 3 at junior, 2 infant. Really appreciate the teachers and like both schools.

do I need to do teacher Christmas gifts?
I always send a genuine nice quality card with words of thanks and merry Christmas etc and usually do gifts but feeling the pinch this year.

leaning towards not doing gifts eek

Also not really sure what to gift if I do? Any ideas or views welcome x

Your card with genuine words of thanks sounds lovely. That's enough.

Not sure what is YABU and what is YANBU in the context of your thread, but no you definitely don't need to get presents for teachers. We don't expect it at all. A card would be perfect!

Cards are perfect! Or, email the head! I've had parents do this a couple of times and it absolutely makes me so happy, it's a great feeling.

I never expect gifts, nor do my colleagues. A card would be lovely.

I know my children's teachers would never expect a gift, but dc would feel very awkward and left out not to have a gift to give - may be worth having an age appropriate chat with your children if yours may be similar.

It’s lovely to have some type of acknowledgment. A card with actual words is lovely. A gift is also appreciated because someone has taken the time.

A gift to the staff room with a note is also high up there.

The only sad thing I come across is the child saying to me, sorry we couldn’t get you anything. So check if they care first. We don’t but they might.

I love a card with a lovely message.
Do the classes have group collections? This is a nice way of everyone contributing what they can or nothing at all but it’s from the class.

As a teacher, it’s lovely to get a gift but also completely unnecessary. A nice card is more than enough.

Completely unnecessary to get gifts. I'm a teacher and the thing that means the most isn't gifts or quality cards. I love if the child has drawn a card or the parents stays until I have released the class and says 'thank you have a nice Christmas'.

If your children are feeling they want to do something then home baked biscuits or similar would allow them to feel that they had really contributed and not cost your purse too badly.

You know we don't expect anything. I love a card and every year the ornaments (normally handmade the kids have made me) go up in pride of place on the tree.

As an ex teacher, I always felt that a lovely card and message was worth far more than a gift.

My most precious one came from a teenager, who was probably heading for a prison sentence when I first met them.

They gave me a card, and inside it simply read: Thank you, you made a difference to me.

No gift could be better.

I tend to get some gifts but I think that’s because it’s the end of the school year, it’s not a specific Xmas gift.

Gifts aren’t expected and, to be honest, I tend to give away most items to close family /friends as they aren’t things I’d eat or use. The best gift I received this year was an email from a student thanking me and telling me that on days they didn’t want to come to school, knowing that they’d see me was what got them to come in. A practical gift I appreciated was a mug full of pens and whiteboard markers.

What I love receiving is a nice card or email from parent or student. I save those and when I have a particularly difficult day that makes me wonder if I can continue doing this, I read these messages and it reminds me that I’m making a positive impact and that my efforts are appreciated.

As a retired secondary teacher, these threads about gifts for primary teachers interest me.

I ONCE in my entire career got an Xmas gift. It was from a boy in my Y7 form and in the last 10 minutes of term (back to form room for register and clear up before going home), he looked furtively round, rushed to the front with his bag and whacked a chocolate orange on my desk, then rushed back. I could almost hear his Mum saying to him "You give that to your form tutor - and make sure you do!"

I'll add that anyone going into the staffroom in the schools I worked in and admitting they'd received a pupil gift would be the subject of good-natured ribbing.

OP, teachers in any phase do not expect gifts and a nice card - especially a nice one made by your child - would be lovely. Say thank you to him/her on the last day of term. That's all you need to do.

As a teacher, this is my preference. I don't want/ned various boxes of chocolate or wine etc.

For Christmas we’re just doing a card with some lovely words in, and my 6 year old has made salt dough tree decorations. Simple to do, she enjoys it, and if the teachers don’t want them they can chuck them, but something that goes on the tree for a few weeks of the year is better than clutter/unwanted gifts. My DD just used tree shaped cookie cutters to make the tree salt dough ornament then painted them with acrylic and sealed with a spray.

Teachers of younger children also like to receive a card or note from the child. Presents are unnecessary.

I do vouchers now. Handmade stuff is lovely but personally I struggle to have space for the stuff my own children make and have to be selective about what we keep, so I am conscious of not giving ‘stuff’ that a home has to be found for when the teachers may have their own children’s handmade items to prioritise. I quite often get gifts from children via my volunteer work and while it’s lovely to see the handmade stuff, I just can’t keep it all and it gives me a bit of a headache on where to store it and guilt when I have to bin it.

We now do homemade cards and a book token or something.

But I think handmade tree decorations are the best solution to handmade stuff as they tend to be small and have a place. Avoid mugs!

Oh my I forgot about this thread!

thank you for replying , in the end I did do the gifts, we did a nice mug with a costa voucher (£10)and a box of chocs and a biscuit and coffee hamper for staff room.

I let go of the pressure of having to do it then came into a little bit of unexpected money so want for it x