A teacher or teaching assistant will be given a dozen mugs, a shelf of chocolates and several candles this December, most of which end up in the staffroom or a charity shop by February. The gift that lands differently is one that gives them something to do in the holidays: a gin kit, a cheese making kit or a chilli sauce kit, each of which turns into an afternoon of their own rather than another object with a robin on it.
These also work well as a group gift when a few families club together, which is often the tidiest way to do it. One good kit shared between four parents beats four separate small things, and the teacher gets a present rather than a collection.
Why does another mug miss the mark?
Because it is not really chosen. Everyone knows it, including the person receiving it, and the transaction becomes an exchange of politeness rather than a gift. Teachers are unusually gracious about this, which is precisely why it keeps happening.
The second problem is volume. A class of thirty produces a lot of identical presents, and no one household needs that much of anything. Something consumable with an activity attached solves both at once: it is used up, it is not duplicated, and it is obviously deliberate.
What makes a good teacher gift?
Three qualities, in our experience of being on both sides of this. It should be genuinely usable by an adult with limited free time. It should not require the recipient to perform delight over something they will never touch. And it should be easy to carry home on the last day of term, along with everything else they are carrying.
A kit ticks all three. It is a box, it goes in a bag, and it waits patiently in a cupboard until the holidays start properly.
The gin kit, for the end of a long term
The Gin Making Kit is the most-given of ours in December, and for a school gift it has one feature worth knowing: there is no alcohol in the box. Our kits contain botanicals, equipment and instructions, and the recipient buys the spirit themselves, so a child can hand it over at the school gate without anyone feeling awkward. It is still a kit for adults aged 18 and over, since they supply the vodka.
What they get is a London-style gin made by steeping juniper with coriander, citrus peel, allspice and lemongrass in a bottle of inexpensive vodka. It infuses in under a week, there is no distilling and no equipment to buy, and they taste it with the pipette as it steeps and strain it when it is right. The kit was named a top pick on ITV's How to Spend It Well at Christmas, where chef Matt Tebbutt tasted it.
The cheese kit, for the one who talks about food
If the staffroom knows this teacher as the one with the interesting lunch, the Cheese Making Kit, Cheeses of the World is a lovely thing to give. It covers ten fresh cheeses including mozzarella, halloumi, paneer, ricotta, mascarpone, chevre and burrata, with vegetarian rennet, citric acid, cheese salt, a thermometer, moulds and cheesecloth in the box.
Most of the cheeses are ready in around an hour, which matters for someone whose free time arrives in small pieces. All they add is fresh whole milk, never UHT or lactose free, neither of which will curdle. It is also a good kit to do with children of their own over the holidays, since the transformation from milk to curds happens in front of you.
The chilli sauce kit, for a group gift with some heft
When several families are contributing, the Chilli Sauce Making Kit is the one we would point at. Seven sauces, from gentle to seriously hot, built on six dried chillies in the chipotle, cayenne, green, jalapeno, facing heaven, habanero and piri piri styles, with cider vinegar, a mini sieve, gloves, grip-seal bags, kraft labels and the recipe book included.
It is a bigger box than the others and it reads as a proper present when it is opened. The recipient adds a blender and a few fresh ingredients per recipe, listed at the top of each one, and the finished sauces bottle and label beautifully, which is how a lot of them end up as next year's gifts to somebody else. The gloves matter: chilli oils stay on skin and sting if they reach your eyes.
How should you give it?
- Keep the card from the child and the kit from the parents. A drawing and a kit is a much better pairing than a drawing and a mug.
- Say what it is in one line. Teachers open a lot of parcels in a short time. "Makes your own gin, you just add a bottle of vodka" saves them working it out.
- Coordinate if you can. A quick message to the class group avoids four families giving four cheese kits.
- Post it if you would rather not send it in with a child. You can enter their address as the delivery address at checkout, if they have shared one, and the kit goes straight to them.
Buying in October or November is sensible and entirely safe: our food and drink kits carry an eighteen month shelf life from packing, cheese kits twenty four months, and every kit leaves us with at least twelve months on the best before date.
Teacher gift FAQs
What can you give a teacher instead of a mug or chocolates?
Something with an activity attached that gets used up, such as a gin making kit, a cheese making kit or a chilli sauce kit. It is consumable, unlikely to be duplicated and clearly chosen.
Is a gin kit an appropriate gift for a teacher?
The box contains no alcohol, only botanicals, equipment and instructions, so nothing alcoholic changes hands at the school gate. The recipient buys the spirit separately, and it is a kit for adults aged 18 and over.
Which kit works best as a group gift from several families?
The Chilli Sauce Making Kit. It makes seven different sauces and arrives as a substantial box, which suits a present several people have contributed to.
How much time does each kit need?
Most of the fresh cheeses take around an hour, gin infuses in under a week with very little hands-on time, and each chilli sauce is an afternoon.
Can these kits be made with children?
The cheese kit is the one for that, with an adult running the hot pan. The gin and chilli kits are adult jobs, the first because of the spirit and the second because of the chillies.
Buying for more than one member of staff? Our gift kits make it easy to give three people three different projects.
