I walk across the playground at lunchtime and eight-year-old Lily runs up and hugs me. Her friend Sampson follows her and throws himself around me, too. A third, fourth and fifth child do the same. I only wanted to go out to get some lunch and now I have a strangler fig tree of arms around my waist.

My reaction is to helicopter - lift my arms out by my side and put my hands in the air. I look around to try and meet the eyes of other teachers, particularly female teachers. I want it to be seen that I’m not touching the children that are clinging to me.

‘Safe’ touch

A few weeks later, I receive safeguarding training from a person I’ll call Claudia. I tell Claudia about my helicopter reaction, expecting her full approval.

“I don’t think you’re doing the right thing,” she says. “Children need touch in order to learn what counts as healthy and unhealthy physical boundaries. A zero-touch policy is going to confuse children more than educate them about how to negotiate personal space and how to be aware of when it is or isn’t OK to touch someone. Touch can be fine, provided that it is obviously not too intimate and done out of an awareness of the child’s needs.”

I totally agree with Claudia. Which isn’t to say I was signed up to the zero-touch policy and then I met her and she changed my mind. I’ve always agreed with her view. Claudia saying what she said just gave me permission to claim my own thoughts. I feel annoyed for needing her permission like this. Much in the same way that I feel annoyed when Lily hugs me and I seek the pardoning eyes of female colleagues across the playground.

A male dilemma?

Of course, since becoming a teacher, I’ve often noticed the comparative ease with which female colleagues will rest their hand on a child’s shoulder when the child is shy in order to encourage them to express themselves, or stroke a child’s head when the child is emotional in order to calm them down.

Almost all male colleagues I speak to say they would never do this, that “it’s not worth the risk”. A mere accusation of inappropriate touching would mean game over.

Some women have said the same to me, albeit far fewer.

I guess I just did my job and assumed that the difference between male and female practices around touch in the classroom was just the way it was. Though I’m grateful to have had that assumption challenged, the idea that it is only women who can fully and truly inhabit the role of primary school teacher is an idea that both men and women should resent.

Divided state

And yet: the day after I train with Claudia, I walk across the playground at lunch time and three children run up and hug me. I put my arms out by my side, repeating my helicopter gesture.

So, although I believe it should be no big deal to touch a child on the head or shoulder in this situation, and although that belief has been validated by experts like Claudia, it still feels dangerously inappropriate to do so.

I don’t like working in this divided state.

One of the reasons I became a teacher is because I didn’t want a job where how I act is alienated from what I believe. Perhaps this “it’s-not-worth-the-risk” thinking is entrenched in me, too. But consciously avoiding those risks every day is starting to incur its own cost.

Cost to the children’s learning about their own and other bodies and to my sense of connection to the job.

Andy West is a teacher and senior specialist and training officer for the Philosophy Foundation. He tweets @AndyWPhilosophy