I'm as much against political correctness than the most militant of you earlier posters. However, it is a small minority of genuine paedophiles who have landed us in this dilemma. I'm lucky because I only teach piano part time in addition to my full time English teaching job in a grammar school. Therefore my pupils are all tutored in my home. The piano on which I teach is adjacent to French doors and can easily be seen from the family room, where my wife and daughters spend most of their leisure time while I am teaching. I'm also fortunate that the students I now have are at least in senior years of grammar school.

About ten years ago when I started teaching at home, I asked my own teacher if she recommended that I mentioned to parents about the possiblity of having to lay a hand on a child's hand or arm occasionally when teaching technique etc. She took a day or two to think it over, factoring in that I am male and that the pupils at that time were of both sexes and quite young. She came back with the response: "Don't say anything to plant the idea of anything untoward in the parents' minds. With hindsight, I think this was the right advice. Yes I have occasionally embraced a female pupil, e.g. when one of them scraped through an examination which she should not have passed. It was an overflow of spontaneous emotion and was reciprocated as such.

The idea of 12-year-olds going to a teacher's house at weekends is something I'm not sure about. I think the best rule of thumb here has to be: "If in doubt don't!" There's is not clear way of determining what's in that gentleman's mind or motives, so we have to be very wary. Some of my sixth formers in school I would see as almost as "friends" despite a three-and-a-half decade age-gap; I know them very well, have great banter with them and socialise occasionally outside school. But 12-year-olds - I think not!!!

LR

As one of the earlier posters whose radar was set off, I hate the fact that paedophilia has become the new Salem Witch hunt, however it has, and in some cases it is founded.

This is why organisations like the ISM set out protocols concerning matters like these. I think the one that raised my hackles the most was the invitation to teachers home. It smacked of possible grooming.

There just was a slight feeling of unease there.

I thought hard before replying, but because there was that feeling of unease and a child involved, I felt it necessary to comment.

I finally managed to speak to the various people involved. Not easy, because the school is twelve miles from home and six from work, and messages aren't always responded to straight away.

The Head of Music at the school was, again, very relaxed about the whole thing, and I also spoke to the teacher concerned. He said that the touching incidents were because The Boy does not always respond to being told to stop playing in a timely way - and since lessons are only half an hour, it makes no sense at all to waste the time by thoughtless noodling. As for the invitations - the teacher had suggested to The Boy that, with his exam imminent and there still being some work to do, an extra lesson or two would be worthwhile. Having a lesson over the weekend means that the lesson can be longer, which is fine by me (though The Boy is somewhat less sanguine about it; being an inveterate sports lover, he fears missing rugby practice or something else).

So I, as the parent, am now perfectly content with the situation - and The Boy also realises that, if he doesn't stop playing when requested, or continues to embellish scales inappropriately, he risks having his hands grabbed again. When I started learning the piano the teacher used to rap my knuckles with a ruler - The Boy should consider himself lucky!

Thanks everyone for the useful discussion.

I'm really pleased you've got this one sorted Edwardo, and that my alarm bells were unfounded.

Still this is a sanguine lesson to us all about the pitfalls of being a teacher!

One of the piano teachers (not mine) in my home town apparently used to do this . He would risk getting locked up now !

This is exactly what I thought it would be. Goes to show how parents approach things differently.

I'm not getting at you Edwardo as something happened to arouse my suspicions of a "music teacher" recently. I should have been flattered, but thought the approach to my almost 14 year old was suspect. On meeting the person they did nothing to alay my fears. Needless to say we didn't take up their offer of tuition.

It's right to be aware, but sometimes we judge too quickly.

My son's piano teacher is forever lifting his wrists up, poking the odd finger over into the right place and tapping his elbows gently in. She is a middle aged lady with a son of her own, and my 9 year old had picked up some very bad habits before he went to her, that do need correcting, so I am quite happy about her gentle physical guidance, and he has no problem with it either.

Burl

Ditto