I must admit, when I was a young teacher I looked forward to the (usually remote) chance of a child or parent bringing me the odd Christmas present.
Over the years that never amounted to much. I worked in a relatively poor inner-city borough in east London – but sometimes a pack of Quality Street or a cheap bottle of after-shave would be the concrete evidence of a genuinely touching appreciation.
Some of my friends worked as teachers in leafy affluent suburbs. They would come home on the last day of term with their hands full of expensive gifts – cashmere scarves, silk ties, high value book tokens and bottles of Chablis.
I have to admit... I really envied them.
When I was out of school teaching and working at the Department for Education, my employers regularly reminded me that all gifts from any source must be politely but firmly declined. Even being sent a pocket diary by a firm of printers had to be recorded in a pecuniary register. We didn’t even get a Christmas drink from the boss!
However, one year at school was a notable exception. I was teaching Year 6 at the time and a parent sent in a very desirable Christmas present. It was a pair of expensive tickets for excellent seats at a sell-out West End musical, enclosed in a very nice card saying: “Thanks for all you have done to get Sarah in to the best school in the borough next year.”
In actual fact, I hadn’t done any more to get Sarah in to “the best school in the borough” than I had for the 29 other children in the class. So without the slightest hesitation I accepted the gift with delighted alacrity.
It was only reading the card again at home that I reflected I was rather glad the parents of the 29 other children hadn’t seen the words written on the card.
Should I have even been bothered what other parents thought?
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk.
His new book: ‘Becoming a teacher – the legal, ethical and moral implications of entering society’s most fundamental profession’ is published by Crown House Publishing and can be ordered here. (add 'Becoming20' for 20% discount at the checkout)
You may be interested in his course in ‘The Foundations of Professionalism in Teaching’ – a 3-module course with over 4.5 hours of HD quality video presentations, additional course reading and materials, self assessment exercises and completion certificates.
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