Being appointed the first woman in 700 years to lead one of Britain’s oldest and most historic schools is no mean feat.
Taking the job after the £38,000-a-year school was rocked by a safeguarding scandal and the former principal sacked over “flirty texts” to pupils, even more so.
Sue Frencham is quite frank when she says the last year as principal at Ruthin School in Denbighshire has had its challenges.
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On top of dealing with damning Estyn and Care Inspectorate Wales reports about safeguarding, there was a global pandemic and remote learning for her to steer Wales’ highest fee-paying school through.
The former state school chemistry teacher admitted the first line of Ruthin’s most recent Estyn report in February, 2021, before she took over, was “stinging”.
She recalled days that began at 6am and ended at 10 or 11pm but was confident the school, founded in 1284, had turned a corner since this time last year when the Welsh Government threatened to shut it down.
While much of the news was dominated by continuing lockdowns and school closures last February the then Ruthin principal Toby Belfield was sacked with “immediate effect”. He had sent messages to female pupils on social media in which he talked about breasts, virginity and sexuality.
Ruthin said it was terminating his employment a week after the Welsh Government hinted it could effectively shut down the school unless appropriate action was taken after a damning Care Inspectorate Wales report said that children at the school were at risk of harm.
The inspection was prompted by a series of inappropriate messages sent to a teen from the former head on Instagram, in which he told her she was cute and that she looked good in her blazer.
North Wales Live reported at the time that it had seen hundreds of screen shots of messages that Mr Belfield sent to three different youngsters on social media sites and Whatsapp between 2017 and May, 2020.
In them, he boasted about his seniority and said “flirting is fine,” sent love hearts and emojis and commented on the size of TV star Rachel Riley’s breasts.
He said he liked women “small and petite” and asked one student if she had an eating disorder because she was a “thin girl” before going on to tell her she looked good.
The concerns about Toby Belfield led to an unannounced inspection by schools inspections body Estyn which found the school didn’t meet regulations to ensure the welfare, health and safety of pupils.
Estyn’s report echoed the similar report from the Care Inspectorate Wales which found pupils, were “at risk of harm” at the school .
Kirsty Williams, Wales’ Education Minister at the time, made clear she had no power to sack the headteacher but that if the school did not take the necessary steps to meet its legal safeguarding responsibilities, she did have the power to stop the school from offering full-time education.
In response, Ruthin, where many of the pupils are boarders, said it was taking immediate action and Mr Belfield had not been carrying out his duties since investigations began.
As the school began addressing matters, an interim principal was appointed before Sue Frencham took up the post last March.
Coming to the exclusive school as a chemistry teacher nine years ago from the state sector, she said she didn’t have much time to decide whether to accept the job, but didn’t need it. She said she loved the school, had already been promoted as assistant head (academic) and wanted to help put right what was wrong.
No parents cited the scandal as a reason for removing their children and there was “no groundswell” of concern among parents, she added.
But the situation had “rocked everybody” and safeguarding and other procedures and policies had to be re-written and acted upon, she said.
A Leeds University graduate, Mrs Frencham has spent her teaching career in and around north Wales. She came to Ruthin from The Catholic High School in Chester and before that worked at Ysgol Aberconwy.
Working in the independent sector was "amazingly different", largely because of the far smaller class sizes, she said. But turning a school around during a crisis was a new challenge again.
“I took over in March, 2021. I did not have a lot of time to make the decision. Of course you have to think carefully about taking a role like this, but I did not have any reservations. I felt it was unfair for us to be in the position we are in. It would be fair to say everybody has been rocked by the events of what happened.”
With her own teenage daughter at the school she felt it was safe but work needed to be done.
“Toby Belfield was already head when I joined. The way the school was run in the past has caused recent challenges and the most important thing is that the school acknowledges we had difficulties in the past and needed a change," Mrs Frencham said.
“We have gone headlong into a transformation to turn the school into what it is now.
“I wanted to put right all the things that needed putting right. I was uncomfortable with some of the things that had been going on and knew what it needed to put right.”
Ruthin, which has pupils from around the world including Kazakhstan, China and Russia, has been working with Estyn and CiW . So far, there have been two improvement meetings with the inspectorate on top of reform behind the scenes.
“The school is flourishing in pastoral care. We retain our academic credentials, but now we are looking at individuals more and making sure of individual achievements rather than looking at the top of league tables. Parents and children have been supportive. No-one left because of this.”
There is a new governance structure, a new safeguarding lead and a change of leadership structure.
The school does have the children’s mobile phone numbers but individual staff don’t have personal contacts with children. They sign a code of conduct and training is “more robust”.
Mrs Frencham admitted there was still work to be done and that the Estyn report pulled no punches. She hoped and expected the next report would be different.
The current report, published in February 2021, reads: “Overall, the school continues to fail to meet standard 3 of Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2003. That Standard 3 is the “welfare, health and safety of pupils”.
However, the document added that Ruthin was “beginning to respond suitably to the recommendations of the previous focused visit”.
“I would not say we have come away unscathed,” said the new principal.
"It has been a very challenging period but we absolutely have faced and acknowledged events of the past. Yes, the first line of the inspection is damning, but we hope that will change when Estyn and CiW next come in.”
Looking back on the year, she hoped 2022 would be calmer.
“We did all this in the middle of a pandemic. We made this transformation during Covid. It’s been an incredible challenge with this on top of Covid.
“It’s been incredibly intense but I love this school. The real reason I took this job is because it’s an amazing school.”
On being the first woman to lead Ruthin, which took its first female pupils in 1990, Mrs Frencham said it would have an impact.
"It is quite a weight and responsibility. I have seen our girls here being very buoyed by the knowledge they have a female head now."
The response from Estyn
Asked to comment on the situation at Ruthin, Estyn said it could not comment on individual circumstances relating to a provider.
A spokesperson added: “Where we identify that schools don’t meet the independent schools standards, we will always leave recommendations for improvement and will provide advice to Welsh Government on the appropriateness of a post inspection action plan. Once the plan is approved by Welsh Government, the school provides us and Welsh Government with regular updates.
“We always carry out follow-up inspection activity to check that the school has made progress against recommendations and meets the independent school standards.
“In some cases, where there are particular concerns that may take longer to address, Welsh Government asks us to meet with the schools more regularly to discuss progress as well as offer support in identifying appropriate improvement plans.
“We also use the evidence from our independent school inspections to provide regular feedback on key issues to support improvement through an annual conference organised by the Welsh Independent Schools Council (WISC).”
What Care Inspectorate Wales said about Ruthin School
A report from Care Inspectorate Wales, published in May, 2021, after the school began work to improve safeguarding, said: "Children are safer because the safeguarding arrangements are clearly defined and the process for reporting safeguarding concerns is more open and transparent, but there are still areas for improvement.
It goes on: "Safeguarding systems, processes and records need to be developed and implemented more robustly to ensure children are appropriately safeguarded."
But it added: "Children can be confident that beneficial improvements have been made to ensure their safeguarding, health, and wellbeing are protected."
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