Keeping lessons safe

This is the part I would want to read first if I were the parent, so it gets its own page rather than a line in the small print.

Lessons happen in your home, never in mine. I do not teach children at my house and I do not offer a cheaper rate for coming to me, because that would put a price on the safer arrangement. If anyone offering to teach your primary-aged child suggests otherwise, that is worth thinking hard about.

An adult must be in the house. Not in the room, necessarily, a parent, an older relative, whoever is normally at home. If nobody will be there, we move the lesson. I will not teach a child alone in an empty house.

A family room, with the door open. A dining table, a sitting room, a study. Never a bedroom, never behind a closed door.

You can sit in whenever you like. You never need to ask and you never need a reason. For the first lesson I would rather you did.

I do not transport children. No lifts, no walking a child anywhere, no errands.

Papers you get before we start. A police character certificate, my ID, and the names and numbers of the two head teachers I have worked under. I hand these over at the first lesson without being asked. Please do call the schools.

Messages go to you, not to your child. I message the parent's number. I do not text or call a child directly and I do not add them on anything.

Photographs. I photograph work, never children. Anything that goes on this page is there because the child and the parent both agreed, with a first name and class only, no surname, no school.

If something feels wrong to you, say so. To me, or to your child's school, or to the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development. You do not owe me the benefit of the doubt, and I would rather be asked an awkward question than not.