A teacher who stood by her schoolmaster husband after finding out he was having sex with a teenager faces being struck off for failing to report the affair.
Jane and Bryan Schalch were both teachers at a prestigious independent school when Schalch began an affair with the 17-year-old girl – who he had been tutoring on a private basis.
He kissed the girl in clandestine meetings in a supermarket car park, eventually inviting her back to his R5-million marital home in Moreton Morrell, Warwickshire, where they had sex three times.
Once, he was caught by his wife with the girl in their guest bedroom. However, 39-year-old Jane did not report him to their superiors at Warwick School and now faces the prospect of a teaching ban for failing to do so.
The Teaching Regulation Agency said Jane ignored her safeguarding responsibility to the teenager.
When he embarked on the relationship in September 2015, Schalch, now 42, was a housemaster at the day and boarding school, where fees for boarders are up to R372 000 a year.
His wife learned of the affair in November 2015 when she arrived home to find the girl in her underwear. But the relationship continued in secret until March 2016, and only came to the attention of the authorities when a friend of the girl blew the whistle.
Schalch was charged with three counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust. At his trial, the court heard that he had been employed by the teenager’s parents as a private tutor, but kept in touch with the girl afterwards. The relationship ended when he refused to leave his wife.
Schalch was branded ‘immoral and shabby’ by a judge but cleared of criminal wrongdoing because the girl was a pupil at another school. He was later barred from working with children.
Jane, however, was dismissed in March 2018 for gross misconduct. At a hearing of the Teaching Regulation Agency, the panel was told that she admitted placing the teenager – at risk of harm by not whistleblowing. She said her husband lied that the girl was 18.
Jane now works as an early years teacher at another school. The panel will decide whether to recommend a prohibition order from the profession.