London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Sep 14, 2025

Don't buy teacher a Christmas gift unless it is wine, survey suggests

Don't buy teacher a Christmas gift unless it is wine, survey suggests

A homemade card will do for most – but primary teachers wouldn’t say no to booze
Parents in a last-minute panic about Christmas gifts for their children’s teachers don’t need to worry: most teachers say the present they’d prefer is a homemade card – although primary school teachers would be just as happy with booze.

With most schools in England closing for the Christmas holidays on Friday, an anonymous survey of more than 5,000 UK teachers conducted by the Teacher Tapp app revealed teachers would rather receive homemade cards from their pupils than the traditional offerings of wine or chocolate or other gifts.

The exception, though, are teachers in primary schools, who were as likely to say they’d prefer wine as a painstakingly-drawn felt-tip and glitter Santa from Year 1.

The popularity of a student’s own work over the sinful attractions of free alcohol and confectionary shows that teachers really are soft-hearted, even at secondary school, according to Becky Allen, Teacher Tapp’s co-founder and chief analyst.

“Primary school teachers probably get blasé about getting homemade cards, whereas by secondary school it doesn’t happen as much, so it’s a real bonus to have the kids saying something meaningful about you,” said Allen.

For those intent on giving chocolates – favoured by just one in six teachers - Terry’s Chocolate Orange topped the national popularity stakes, while Roses and Quality Street were the least popular.

The relative popularity of Christmas gifts is one of the more unusual results uncovered by Teacher Tapp, an app dedicated to finding out what teachers think and how they do their job on a daily basis.

The results have been eye-opening, according to Allen, an honorary research fellow at Oxford University’s department of education, in revealing the long and often unproductive hours teachers work, and how lonely the job can often be.

“We’ve found that teachers spread their working day over really long hours. Many of them take a break after leaving school, either because they have got caring duties or they are exhausted, frankly,” Allen said.

“They go home and then they start working again in the evening. We found that four in 10 teachers in any weekday evening are sitting in front of the TV doing their marking.

“Psychologically, it can feel quite a burden to do a job where you feel like you are working from first thing in the morning, until the last thing you do before you go to bed is work.

“You’ve got this infinite job, you don’t work as part of a team so you have to make your own decisions how to manage your workload, and that’s really hard for anyone to do.”

Ironically, teachers themselves agree that marking books is often a waste of time – the educational researcher Prof Dylan Wiliam’s calls marking “one of the most expensive PR exercises in history”.

Another survey found more than 70% of teachers agreed that doing away with written comments on pupils’ work would make no impact on what they learned. And nearly two-thirds of classroom teachers said activity such as marking was mainly driven by the need to impress outsiders, whether parents or Ofsted inspectors.

“If you ever say to a headteacher, you could just drop the marking policy, they would be absolutely horrified. But there’s no rule that says you have to have one. But things get culturally embedded and then it’s hard to turn back,” Allen said.

Allen and Laura McInerney, another former teacher and Guardian education columnist, came up with the idea of Teacher Tapp in 2017, attracting seed funding to create the app that now has a dedicated user base of 6,000 teachers around the country answering the three or four brief questions sent each afternoon.

In doing so Teacher Tapp has created a community of teachers who share the same profession but often have little contact with those outside their immediate area, even within their own schools.

One of the saddest results uncovered by Teacher Tapp has been the substantial number of teachers who preferred to eat their lunch – often as short as 30 or 45 minutes a day – in their classrooms or offices, away from their colleagues.

Allen says such responses have led her to think about the loneliness of teaching, “how isolating it is, how little teachers actually know about each other and the job they do.

“Teachers don’t all hang out in the staffroom together as much as they used to, and fewer collegial conversations are taking place. It does mean that quite a lot of the dysfunction in schools comes from relative isolation and lack of understanding.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
Pig Heads Left Outside Multiple Paris Mosques in Outrage-Inducing Acts
Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading. The AI chip giant used to beat Wall Street expectations for earnings by a substantial margin. That trajectory is coming down to earth.
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
On the Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Prince Harry Returns to Britain
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
×