To buy or not to buy?

The end of term is fast approaching, you’ve hit July and the countdown has begun to the long summer holidays. Sports days are done and dusted, end of year parties and proms are under way, school trips are in full flow and everyone is starting to wind down.

Now comes the big question…do you buy a gift for your child’s teacher?

I’ve asked around about this quite a lot and the response is more varied than I had imagined.

There are a number of schools these days that have actually banned the giving of gifts to teachers, presumably as this created too many issues or perhaps inappropriate gifts were being given…who knows? Anyone had experience of this?

Some parents (not many I must add though) don’t consider it appropriate to give any form of gift to your child’s teacher. A few only give a gift at the point that the child leaves the school, or the teacher leaves the school.

The majority it seems do like to give some sort of gift though.

So, what do you buy?

You could just get nice cards, either bought or handmade. You could perhaps get you child to make something. When I asked people what types of gifts they normally gave the most popular things were: chocolates; flowers; mugs; post it notes in funky colours and shapes; wine; personalised jute bags to carry books; and some sort of hanging plaque with a personal message.

If you times that buy 20,25 or even 30 that’s a boot full of loot for teachers to be taking home on their last day of term!

When I asked teachers what they liked to receive it differed a bit from what parents liked to buy. Flowers and wine were the most popular with the teachers I asked. Chocolates were appreciated but some teachers said that they ended up giving them away if they got lots as they were gaining too much weight.

When I asked about mugs the response was “dear god no more mugs….pleeeeease” – so not sure we will be getting any of those again. Post it notes were welcomed as a practical gifts and several teachers said they liked receiving nice pens for marking as they are always in need of them.

A few teachers said they prefer to just receive a handmade gift or card.

Top picks for gifts

So wine gets the thumbs up but perhaps then you need to find out what they specifically like. You could try asking another teacher perhaps and get them to let you know in advance. If we are buying a gift, we want them to actually enjoy what we are giving them, don’t we?

With chocolates you could try going for quality or uniqueness over quantity. A few nicely package chocolates from a quality brand are likely to go down better than the biggest box of chocolates that don’t even taste like proper chocolate – you know the ones I mean? We think the Cocoapod chocolates are fantastic and they make a great gift for a teacher.

Create your own BEST TEACHER EVER chocolate gift in 27 solid blocks of delicious solid chocolate with a box of handmade Belgian chocolates by Cocoapod. These are handmade by COCOAPOD in a choice of dark or milk Belgian chocolate with white letters on the top of the chocolate.

Carefully packaged in a smart white box with chocolate brown sleeve which will slide to reveal your message perfectly. These look really lovely and make a gorgeous gift. You can pick these up at Yumbles for £15.75 plus postage.

If you want something tasty to give as a gift but you know they aren’t a fan of chocolates, or you just want to give something a bit different you could buy something like these gorgeous Champagne & Strawberry Marshmallows from Cloud Nine.

These are so nicely packaged and look divine. These aren’t any regular marshmallows, oh no, these are award-winning handmade gourmet marshmallows. They are as light as a feather and freshly made at a farmhouse in Cornwall in small batches, using only fine, natural ingredients. Sophie Dahl calls them ‘sublime’ and Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch panel declared them their ‘absolute favourite’.

Yumbles also stock a whole range of other tasty treats you could give teachers as gifts. From a coffee lovers letter box, to vintage organic cheddar in a gift box, their gifts for teachers should give you some inspiration.

The Works have some great sticky notes and pads that would be useful but funky gifts, but I love this post it note dispenser in the shape of an apple.

What will you be buying your children’s teachers this year?