THERE is a very old song that refers to “an apple for the teacher”.

I was vaguely aware of it during my barelyremembered school days, but it never occurred to any of us that there was any need to be so ridiculously generous.

Even though the primary school was in a thriving horticultural district, our parents never thought to provide us with lettuce, tomatoes, spuds or the odd marrow to say “thank you” for effective instruction during the previous term.

Teachers were expected to get on with the job without such rewards.

That does not seem to be the case these days now that yet another American import has taken hold.

The provision of suitable gifts has developed in to big business — various websites offer a wide range of ideas “guaranteed to make your teacher smile”.

One of them refers to “teachers gifts” and “youre a star teacher gifts”.

Those of us who still care about apostrophes see the irony in this.

I suspect this subject is of great interest to thousands of parents, children and teachers across Bolton as they approach the end of the summer term.

The BBC, investigating claims that this area of school life has become “competitive and commercialised”, reported in March last year that 93 per cent of teachers quizzed by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers had received gifts.

Chocolate was the main present, but others included opera tickets, champagne, a Tiffany bracelet and Test Match tickets. I can see that this is a tricky area for kids, parents and the teachers themselves.

No doubt individual schools have their own rules for this situation that accommodates a genuine wish to thank members of staff without causing them embarrassment.

A discussion in my Sunday newspaper featured letters from teachers who had received a great many gifts over the years — chocolates, wine, flowers and books among them.

The consensus seemed to be that these were welcome, but did not mean as much as a special card made by a pupil or a handwritten letter from parents.

One writer appreciated “lovely gestures” even though she preferred it if parents gave a donation to a children’s charity instead.

This sort of thing was never an issue in the olden days.

Modern parents do not seem to be able to avoid it.