To not want to contribute to this madness? Christmas teacher gifting experiences

[lostintherhythagain]

DD is only 4! And not yet reception age

Her little nursery has about 15 in total who are her age.

Parents in the WhatsApp group have been discussing some people not paying up for experience day for teachers AND the staff take away

They want £15 each per family from us so the teacher and support staff can have a spa day. And then money for a take away (they’ll just give them cash in a card) for the end of Christmas school time, before they break up, to have a take away delivered as the staff don’t go home same time as the children obviously

AIBU not to contribute? I never said I’d do it. Not sure if there’s anyone else not contributing

One parent has got the teacher and her child’s TA a personalised bauble. With her DC’s face in it?!?! Utter madness

I have gifted a box of chocolates and didn’t plan to spend anymore.

Many schools now have Gift Policies (or something similar) along with Gifts and Hospitality Register. Staff are supposed to declare any gifts above certain amount (usually set by governors) This is in response to Bribery Act 2010.
As retired head/teacher, I am flabbergasted when I read about some gifts and onupmanship from some parents. Flowers, plants and chocs were always welcome. Not all teachers drink. Once worked with a teetotal male colleague who regularly got a dozen plus bottles of wine/beer. He used to ‘re-gift’ it all. Baubles with children’s photos on/in, a definite no-no for many reasons including safeguarding issues.

It would be odd to have someone else’s child’s head hanging off your family Christmas tree. Like, a bit sinister.

I still can’t get over the bauble 🤣😭🫠

My thoughts exactly. I could have written this.

I’m a Y3 teacher and the bauble is a big no no. It’s almost a safeguarding problem! A box of chocs or wine is lovely. It’s got mad these last few years and distasteful really.

photo of child in frame or on mug

my friend has many / or did

sometimes they break

she’s never had a bauble tho with a kid on it

At our schools there is a class collection with donations on an online platform and most parents contribute £10/£15 each, some more and some less, but the pot usually ends up at £250 / £300 to be divided up for the teacher / TA/ lunchtime assistant etc for vouchers and chocs / similar

Teacher here. We don’t expect anything at all, so a card and a box of chocolates is a wonderful gift - more than enough! Don’t be forced into this madness. I wouldn’t want to spend a day off at a spa with my colleagues, and the bauble… good lord, that would NOT be going on my tree. The last thing I want reminding of on Christmas morning is work 🤣

Same as us

an tbh what most of my friends do at other schools as well

Just tell them you’ve organised your own gift

Personally I don’t feel you should be obliged to contribute, in my kiss primary school class WhatsApp groups lots of parents do contribute as sometimes it’s easier to give an amount towards a gift rather than sort your own one out

It doesn’t feel like there’s any obligation/ no reprisals or guilt if you don’t!

Oh god the Christmas bauble

WTF?! 😂

Utter nonsense.

I have never bought a teacher a present and it didn't hurt my child one bit.
I don't see why any parent should be giving gifts to teachers just doing what they are paid to do by taxpayers.
On this point I am firmly Scrooge.

Agreed. I taught for 40 yrs and discouraged gift giving. I did like getting Christmas cards.

I can’t help but laugh at the image of the poor teachers sat there in a closed up, likely unheated and as yet uncleaned school on the last day of term, waiting for dinner time to order a takeaway because it apparently “makes it so much easier for them”. Who thought that was a nice idea? Probably the same parents that imagine that teachers don’t exist outside of their children and just sit there patiently at their desks for them to return. They deserve to be out the door as near on letting out time as possible!

Teachers present giving thing now totally out of control. Can see Schools bannng them soon.

Box of Chochies and a card from the class.
Just the thing to say thank you teacher

The bauble is a crazy idea. Our nursery parents said suggested donation of £10-20 as you feel appropriate and a gift for 6 teachers from the total. We collected £380 to split between 6 of them and got a personalised card, gift voucher, luxury biscuit & tea selection, champneys toiletry set and a £30 gift voucher for each of them. I thought £10-20 per parenting pair was reasonable as it’s £2-4 per teacher. They were over the moon with their gifts and so thankful. They go above and beyond to make our kids nursery lives the best they can be so feels only right to give a little back..

We've given £25 (suggested amount) for the class collection (towards teacher, TA, head, specialist teacher gifts). Personally I'm relieved not to have the task of thinking up what to buy and the cost is reasonable for us (it's a prep school and none of the families are struggling financially). I do genuinely appreciate the staff (especially for my nursery dc) and think they should get a nice gift.
I've given a box of chocs in the past at a school which didn't do collections, but it can't be a great gift if all the parents give one (you'd end up with 15+ boxes) and if it were me I'd much rather have a voucher for somewhere practical like JL. The class rep always gets a voucher plus some twee thing like a keyring, which I think is pointless, but I suppose the voucher on its own might seem too stark.

This is all completely and utterly ridiculous. Gift a box of chocs if you must, but teachers being gifted spa days or hundreds of pounds in vouchers? Don’t see nurses, firefighters, supermarket workers etc being gifted stuff like that - because they are doing their job.

Someone in our class organises a Christmas collection and an end of year one, for the teacher and TA. There is no set amount though you can send whatever you want / can afford. I usually send £10 as that’s a fiver per teacher which I’d spend myself and it means I don’t have to sort anything myself. I think they usually get a voucher for the teacher with the majority of it and the rest goes to TA. Spa day is weird though. I have no comment on the weird bauble.

Wow, average donation at ours is a box of Celebrations or Heroes. We each take home about 2 boxes for Christmas which I am always more than happy with!!

My local authority has now said we shouldn't accept any monetary gifts and nothing worth over a certain amount. The head has sent out a letter to this effect.

When my kids were in school I did usually contribute £5 to any collection but my children, one in particular, always wanted me to buy something personal as well - I kept the value low.

Dictating how the funds should be spent though is madness- and possibly patronising.

That's madness. Admittedly I am a seco day teacher and we tend to get very little appreciation anyway but for primary I still think that's ludicrous. A tiny token is nice and I can see how the idea of a class gift has come about because what teacher needs 32 bunches of Christmas flowers or or 32 tins of home bargain biscuits. These Mum's have gone mad. A 50p donation per child would still mean about £15 from the whole class. Which would buy a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine or something would be plenty, then the kids could write individual cards.

As a teacher I don't want a spa day with colleagues! I'm with them all week and weekends are for family - school holidays are for my own children. We were gifted an afternoon tea and we nearly let the voucher expire unused because it was hard agreeing a weekend day we could all do, then not everyone came, so much of the value was wasted. Even less we don't want a takeaway together and most delivery services don't deliver to schools anyway even out of hours!

This is why I don’t do WhatsApp groups, it’s gets ridiculous.

I have never contributed to any of this gift giving stuff to teachers unless they were leaving and it was a teacher I liked but I can’t stand Christmas at the best of times,I don’t get caught up in all the spend till you are in debt hype, I don’t even buy my kids pressies at Christmas because I just don’t do Christmas and their birthdays are a few weeks/months after December 25 and I simply just focus on and buy them birthday presents.

Someone at my Zumba class was saying we should all contribute to a collection for the instructor, it was our last session yesterday until we resume in the new year so they said they will organise it in January… I’d love to see that happen when most people are skint in January, but it will be a firm no from me either way.

So, if parents contribute online I assume everyone can see how much they donated. I don't think that is a good idea.