A block of long-life cheese. A half-used lipstick. A pencil that had already been chewed.
These are actual gifts teachers reported receiving when GroupTogether asked about their best and worst presents. One teacher had been given Christmas-themed toilet paper. Another simply answered: “Dog food.”
Suddenly, the box of chocolates you bought last year seems like a perfectly respectable choice.
Finding an end-of-year teacher gift can be surprisingly tricky.
You want to thank the person who’s spent the year helping your child learn, managing their big feelings and somehow keeping track of everyone’s hats and water bottles. But knowing someone as your child’s teacher doesn’t necessarily mean you know what they’d enjoy outside the classroom.
And asking your kid? Yeah, same reason you don’t ask them what to get their friends when they’re invited to a birthday party.
So what do teachers want?
GroupTogether’s 2026 survey received 148 responses from Australian teachers. And once you get past the used toiletries and questionable food choices, their answers make the whole teacher-gift decision a lot easier
Some gifts were… interesting
“A block of Kraft long life cheese—I kid you NOT!!!” wrote one teacher.
Another had received “a pencil that had been chewed on at the end and a mug that said Happy Father’s Day”.
There was also used soap, the aforementioned Christmas-themed toilet paper, and an entire bag of expired coffee and sugar sachets.
Hard to know what happened with some of those.
But the more useful finding for parents wasn’t the handful of strange presents. It was how often the same perfectly normal gifts appeared: mugs, candles, chocolates, hand creams and drink bottles.
“I got 6 drink bottles last year,” one teacher wrote.
Another mentioned “lots of handcreams—still trying to get through them years later”.
You can see how it happens. You buy a nice little gift. Another parent buys a nice little gift. Twenty other parents have roughly the same idea, and suddenly the teacher is trying to find cupboard space for all of them.
Then there’s the question of whether they can actually use what you’ve bought.
Some teachers mentioned receiving food they were allergic to. Others didn’t drink alcohol or couldn’t use scented products. One received expensive musical tickets and explained that “musicals hurt my soul”.
Which is a pretty good reminder that spending more doesn’t necessarily mean getting it right.
Around 9 in 10 would rather receive a single class gift
When asked whether they’d prefer individual presents or one gift from the whole class, around nine in ten surveyed teachers chose the class gift.
That doesn’t mean they were ungrateful for the individual presents. Plenty went out of their way to say they appreciated being thought of.
“I don’t expect anything, so everything I receive means that a family has thought about me and made an effort,” one respondent wrote.
But when families pool their contributions, the teacher can receive something they’ll actually use instead of lots of smaller things they may already have.
One teacher described using a combined gift card worth a few hundred dollars to buy a new watch. They preferred that to keeping track of several smaller gift cards, some of which they might forget to use.
Another put it simply:
“Vouchers such as GroupTogether have always been my favourite because it gives me the flexibility to choose and ensures that I don’t get a gift I don’t want or won’t use.”
It also saves parents from trying to work out whether their child’s teacher is more of a wine person, a skincare person or a please-stop-giving-me-both person.
So what do teachers actually buy?
Quite a range of things, as it turns out.
Teachers reported using their GroupTogether gifts for groceries, clothes, work shoes, household appliances, massages, dinners out and weekends away.
One bought books from the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Another bought a golf putter. Someone else put theirs towards a game console.
Because teachers have interests outside teaching. They don’t necessarily go home and spend the evening admiring stationery.
Some used their gifts for things they needed. Others bought something they’d wanted for ages but couldn’t quite justify spending their own money on.
“As a mum of 3, I don’t very often spend money on myself, so I was excited to spend it at one of my favourite retailers, Country Road,” one teacher wrote.
Another took their partner on a hot-air balloon ride above Melbourne, describing it as something they’d always wanted to do but hadn’t felt able to justify or afford.
And a few had combined gifts or put them towards bigger purchases.
“My dream KitchenAid mixer,” wrote one respondent. “I also put a couple together and paid for part of my honeymoon to the Maldives through Luxury Escapes.”
That’s quite a step up from another coffee mug.
But even the practical purchases could carry a lovely association. One teacher bought a robot vacuum and said that whenever they see it moving around, they think about the children from that class.
The parents probably didn’t set out to buy their teacher a robot vacuum. Giving them the choice made it possible.
The messages matter more than you might think For all the interesting purchases, one thing kept coming up in the responses: the card.
Teachers talked about keeping messages in boxes and folders, printing them out, and holding onto cards from years earlier.
“Although I love the gifts that I get, I treasure the messages and cards from my students,” one wrote. “I have a special box that I keep the notes in and when I have a tough day, I read them and it reminds me why I’m doing the job that I am.”
Another had kept cards from families throughout twelve years of teaching.
And when asked what someone had said that they’d never forget, many remembered hearing how they’d helped a child feel safe, understood or more confident.
“Thank you for believing in my child when no one else did.”
“You are the reason my child loves school.”
These are things parents might know without ever thinking to tell the teacher. Your child is happier going to school. They’ve started enjoying reading. They feel comfortable asking for help. Something that used to make them anxious has become a little easier.
The teacher might see some of that at school, but hearing it from you matters too. And if you’re stuck on what to write, this is where it’s a good idea to ask your child.
One eight-year-old came up with: “Me, X and X are 3 peas and you are the pod, without you we can’t grow.”
Most of us would struggle to improve on that.
You don’t need to make this another big job
The end of the school year already comes with enough things to organise, remember, attend and somehow find money for. Thanking the teacher doesn’t have to mean adding a complicated shopping mission to the list.
If your class is organising a gift, pooling whatever families are comfortable contributing can give the teacher more choice without asking everyone to spend more. And everyone can still add their own thank-you.
More than 500,000 Australians have already signed or contributed through GroupTogether, which is trusted by over 5 million customers. For a class gift, one parent sets up the online card and shares the link. Everyone can add a message or photo and chip in whatever they’re comfortable with—or just sign the card. The teacher can then use their AnyCard to choose from more than 100 retailer eGift Cards.
That sorts out the present. As for what to write, mention what your child enjoyed, something the teacher helped them through, or a change you noticed over the year. You don’t need to come up with something profound. “She used to dread reading out loud, and now she volunteers” tells them plenty.
It doesn’t have to sound impressive. It just has to tell them something you appreciated. They might still be reading it years from now, long after they’ve finally finished all that hand cream.
Have your say!