To add a personal note. The school was split between those who found her charming, challenging, and charismatic and those who saw her as intellectually ferocious and a little frightening. I won’t give my opinion as that was formed from contact both in and out of school ( as a musician and later mother of my girlfriend) and would be therefore unfair and unbalanced compared to those who knew her purely professionally as a deputy head.
Although there was no caning at the girl’s school I attended there was plenty of smacking at the front. However, I remember one term we had a very young female student teacher who would often call a girl to the front of the class for a well-deserved smacking, but then would suddenly change her mind for no apparent reason and send the rather bemused student back to her desk.