Organising a Gift From the Whole Class
End-of-term presents often start in a parents' group chat, with someone volunteering to collect a few pounds from each family. Personalised teacher cufflinks make a good choice for a class collection because the total is modest and fixed. A single pair is £40 with shipping included, which divides easily across a class, and the result is something the teacher will keep rather than another mug.
Personalised teacher cufflinks also suit the one-to-one thank-you: the tutor who got a teenager through GCSE maths, the music teacher who coached a nervous child to their grade five, or the head of sixth form who wrote the reference that made all the difference. A gift from a single family can be just as meaningful as one from thirty.
If you're the one organising, agree a design early, gather any drawings or photos you need, and allow time for the order to arrive before the last day of term.
What to Put on Them
The most treasured designs are the ones the children helped to make. A few ideas that work well:
- A child's drawing of the teacher, chosen from a class art session or drawn specially.
- The class name and year, such as "Oak Class 2026" or "Year 6 Leavers", in a bold, friendly typeface.
- A handprint or a cluster of small fingerprints forming a heart.
- The school crest or badge, for a more formal leaving present.
- A subject symbol: a treble clef for a music teacher, a test tube for science, a football for PE.
A whole-class photo is tempting, but with thirty faces on a small square, each child becomes a dot. It may be kinder to use the photo in a card and put a single, bold drawing on the cufflinks. One lovely compromise: ask every child to draw a tiny self-portrait, choose the one the class votes for, and list everyone's names in the card that goes with the teacher cufflinks.
Scanning Children's Artwork
Children's drawings are often done in pencil or felt-tip on thin paper, and they can look faint when photographed. Ask the child to go over the lines in thick black marker, or choose a drawing already done in strong colours. Photograph it flat, in daylight, from directly above, so that the lines aren't distorted and no shadows fall across the page.
Crop out the edges of the paper before uploading, then zoom in with the live preview until the drawing fills the square. Because printing uses your original file at full resolution, send the photo straight from the phone rather than a copy that has been shared through a chat app, which is often compressed.
If you're using any child's photograph, it's courteous to check with their parents first.
Leaving Do's, Retirements and Staffroom Presents
Teacher cufflinks aren't only a class gift. When a much-loved deputy head or a teacher of thirty years retires, colleagues often want to mark it with something personal. The school crest with their years of service, a photo of the school building, or a design drawn by their current pupils would all be thoughtful choices.
Schools sometimes order several pairs at once, for staff leaving at the end of the summer term, for governors stepping down, or as prizes at a leavers' assembly. Each can have a design of their own in a single order, and at five pairs or more they come to £15 each, plus a single £5 shipping charge.
How It Works
- Upload your image, whether a drawing, crest or text design.
- Check the live preview on both cufflinks, dragging and zooming to get the position just right.
- Order through our secure checkout.
Personalised gifts have been our trade in Cornwall for 17 years, and every pair is printed in that workshop. The cufflinks have a polished, silver-coloured finish and arrive in a gift box, so all that's left is to find a card big enough for thirty signatures.