To buy or not to buy...Teacher's presents

itzmee

I definitely DON'T buy. My 5 year old son has just finished his first year in Reception and he made a card for his teacher all by himself, and wrote in it 'thank you for teaching me' (I helped him with the spelling). That to me was a perfect gift and shows his teacher how much she helped him achieve over the last school year, and if she doesn't appreciate that then she is a fool. I will not spend money on teachers as it just seems that parents compete to get the best/biggest presents at the end of the year.

andyd55

My OH is a teacher and her mother is a principal and both get inundated with presents that they have no use for? And when you have been doing it as long as her mother you have some amount of gifts!

Spendless

thriftlady wrote: »

The thing is where do you stop? In primary schools these days you have the teacher the TA, then there are those kids who give to the dinner ladies too:rolleyes: and the head.

LOL -that was me this year I bought for all of them plus office staff. But that's not usual-hear me out first. Usually I would just have bought for both kids teachers plus dd's TA (ds doesn't have 1), but this year hubby has been ill, diagnosed with cancer and had surgery for it. Thankfully it was removed and now he has checks for next 5 years. During this time my daughter's school was incredibly supportive. The head teacher offerred to keep my daughter behind at school with her cos of the awkward visiting hours at the hospital which weren't compatable with school times, she allowed her to leave early with the nursery children so my friend who had kids wasn't trying to pick 5 children (hers and mine) up from 5 different classrooms. Office staff ran numerous messages for me when I totally forgot to tell , kids who was getting them at home time, or when I had to ring someone else last minute to get them when we'd been delayed at hospital and this was a thank you to the staff from me. The dinner lady gifts were cos ds had left that school having always had same dinner lady, so dd wanted to buy a pressie for hers.

I bought head/teacher/ta wine (3 for £10), ds teacher miniature of whisky, dinner ladies small wine with chocs (all £3 each), and office staff box of truffles £1 each. Considering I bought this all the night before at Asda I was more than happy with price I paid.

mrcow

Just in case anyone is stuck for a teacher's present.

Nivana Spa range is being sold in ASDA. It's usually £7-10 per product if bought direct from the Spa but is on sale for £2 for the big glass jars of bath milk powder.

Guess what son's teacher got (yes I did cave in to pressure - apparently he wanted to get her some No7 make-up initially! :eek:)

squashy

Well those teachers who get too many presents, you should pass some of them over to the admin staff, we never get owt! And we are in over the summer too so a couple of packs of choccy biccies would go down a treat!

Smashing

My mum works in a preschool and had her last day yesterday - some parents give gifts, others don't. It certainly isn't expected - the best 'presents' she received were the thank you cards the kids had made themselves. The parents wrote inside (some were quite touching!) and the kids signed their name and/or drew a piture inside.

Costs nowt, means the world in terms of job satisfaction.

andyrules

Yup, would agree with other teachers - don't feel pressured to rush out and buy a gift (I HATE the current trend of shops who target chocs and flowers to remind mums to buy, buy, buy! ) I have a pile of homemade cards from kiddies that I treasure - it isn't mean, it is actually more meaningful. Whenever I have a tidy up (;)) I read the cards and remember the children, wondering where they are now. I might shed a tear now thinking about it...

little_evo

My five year old son just finished up with reception this year and he asked me if he could make his teacher something special. I asked him what he had in mind and he ran into the kitchen and came out with a small heart shaped cake tin which fit into the palm of your hand and said 'that.'

He always loves cooking with me and so he put in apron on and made several little chocolate heart shaped cakes, frosted and and decorated them on his own and he was SO proud to give it to his teacher as he told her he had made it 'just for her.' We thought she was going to cry. My daughter who is going into reception next year says she wants to make one for her new teacher.

thriftlady_2

I feel I should just point out that in my time as a teacher I was grateful for and touched by every present I recieved. All teachers are, the point is they really don't expect them or need them. Words of thanks- written or spoken are the best present a teacher could receive.

By the way, you'll be relieved to know that when your kids go to secondary school it all stops;)

loobylou2

I've always bought for my children's teachers in the past, usually things like tins of Roses etc but this year will just be buying cards for them as it gets too complicated with numbers and theres always somebody you end up leaving out and forgetting and then feeling mean about because you haven't remembered them!!! Also I've reached a point where I can no longer afford to be buying gifts for teachers etc. They do a great job but they also earn considerably more than myself. I get a bit annoyed at times because I thought that the taxes I pay were supposed to cover the cost of my childrens education yet I'm always being asked to contribute money for various school related things and wonder if other parents also feel the same way about this.