Woman's Hour - Jodie Whittaker, Ofsted Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Actor Jodie Whittaker joins Woman’s Hour to talk about her role in a new Australian six part drama called One Night. Shot in New South Wales the story unfolds around three women from a coastal community whose reunion after many years apart is intensified by the publishing of a novel based on their lives. The central theme being the rape of Jodie’s character Tess twenty years previously and the impact its had on all their lives. Emma Barnett will be asking her about some of her other hard hitting roles post Doctor Who. Amanda Spielman is coming to the end of an unprecedented seven year tenure at the helm of Ofsted. This year the organisation has come under intense scrutiny over its inspection regime and in particular the use of single-phrase judgments of schools, and the potential mental health impacts of those on school leaders and teachers, with many in the profession arguing that the current system is now unfit for purpose, and requires a complete overhaul. On the day Ofsted’s annual report is released, Amanda Spielman joins Emma Barnett for her only BBC interview.The politician Margot Wallström introduced the concept of a feminist foreign policy to the world in 2014 when she became foreign secretary of Sweden. During her tenure she publicly recognised the state of Palestine, endorsed a United Nations ban on nuclear weapons and made no secret of her dislike for President Trump. Since then more than a dozen governments have announced their commitment to a feminist foreign policy, but what does it actually mean? Emma Barnett talks to Margot Wallström and to the German activist and author Kristina Lunz who has just written the Future of Foreign Policy is FeministPresenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Emma Pearce

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. It is the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who today, so who better to have on the programme than the first female Time Lord, Jodie Whittaker. She's my first guest this morning. And we will hear how you follow that role. A clue for you, powerful women's stories. Another woman on the programme today in search of the next

chapter is England's outgoing chief inspector of schools, Amanda Spielman, who's coming to the end of her tenure at the helm of Ofsted. This year, the education watchdog has come under intense scrutiny over its inspection regime, and in particular, the use of single-phrase judgments of schools, things like outstanding or good. But who is Ofsted for? Have you used it? Do you read its reports? Have you relied upon them to make the school choices for those in your life if you've had that responsibility?

How should we, even if you haven't had that responsibility, I'm sure you'll have a view, how should we assess those who assess our children? Or do you think, like a report out this week made a recommendation, that we should scrap such inspections? Is it something that is now of the past and we should be looking at this in a completely different way? We have come through, not in all senses, and certainly with children you can argue definitely not come through to this point yet. But we have come through a pandemic and lockdown and things very much changed for the youngest in society. Is it time to change the way we assess schools or is it fine as it is? And we keep going and we learn from these reviews and these inspections.

24 hour notice given and schools then are reviewed. I'm sure a lot of our listeners, if you're not at least listening live because you're in the classroom, we'll be hearing from you later because you will have a view on this. I know a lot of our listeners work in education, but I also want to hear from those who have to use such reports to make decisions about their children's education. Are they useful? How do you want them to change if you want them to change? 84844, that's the number you need to text at BBC Women's Hour on social media. Tell me your take through an email to us via the Women's Hour website or send a WhatsApp message or voice note with 03700 100 444. Just watch those data charges.

Now, it is my pleasure to be joined in the studio by Jodie Whittaker. Many of you will know her as the 13th Doctor in Doctor Who, the first female Time Lord. As I mentioned, it happens to be the 60th anniversary of the iconic show today, but ever since she finished that role, she's been attracted to the gritty stories of women's lives, and her most recent one is her role in a new Australian six-part drama called One Night. It's set in a coastal community in New South Wales and the story centres around three women. The central theme being the rape of Jodie's character Tess, 20 years previously when she was a teenager.

And the friends reunion after many years apart is intensified by the publishing of a novel based on their lives written by one of them. Jodie Whittaker, I don't think I've given too much away there, but a bit of an overview. Do you know what? That was excellent. And I need to learn from that because I've had that question a lot. Can you tell us what it's about? And yours is a much more succinct version. Mine goes off for 20 minutes. We try to do these things while here on the team at Women's Hour. But I will come to that because it's a really important part, how you choose these roles,

what voices you're giving, women's stories, how you're getting them to bigger platforms. But it is 60 years of Doctor Who. It just happens to be. I should have worn a happy birthday badge. I know. I really let myself down. It's one of those quirks that you'll hear with us. So is it a day that you think about in a specific way?

What are your feelings about this anniversary? Do you know what? What is so extraordinary is to be a tiny cog in such a big wheel of absolute joy. It's my happiest time. My absolute happiness of being a part of that show, that team. And I'm just so excited for the next steps and to be an audience member.

Which is what you are. And have the responsibility. You're not involved with these celebrations? No, and this is not some kind of like sneaky sneaks. I am definitely not involved. This isn't going to be that then I pop up somewhere. I'm definitely not. But was that because you wanted to be an audience member

and just enjoy it? I know, I wasn't asked, love. No, it's fine. But I'm like, I can take it. I've made it very, very public that I would definitely pop back at any point that I'm asked. I haven't been asked yet.

Why have they not asked the first woman back? Well, because I think I've only just left. It's like, give it a a break you need a bit of distance on the break up I think the fans have earned a break from 13 now there is a very

cool fact though to raise about this about you being a woman and I know you've obviously been asked no but you've been asked a lot about how did people take it

what was the response but the only doctor with two hearts I know see can we talk about this you can well it's tell us

first method moment I was very early early pregnant no one knew and I had this very intense moment where I did think

oh my gosh everyone was there's quite a lot of noise around my casting there's a lot of joy but there's also a lot of that I wasn't qualified and suddenly

I'm the most qualified. So for people who don't know Doctor Who and what we're talking about. So the character, the Doctor, has two hearts. So, yeah. So at that point, for those few weeks in the regeneration episode, there I was. This is at the end of you doing this role. Yeah. You were newly pregnant.

So it was a beautiful transition. It was the end of something incredibly special and the beginning of something else. And I loved as well. I read when you were asked of your favourite moment, you talked of one of your monologues, which included the words, none of us know for sure what's out there. That's why we keep on looking. Keep your faith.

Travel hopefully. The universe will surprise you constantly. Yeah. And it's one that if you meet, I have really beautiful interactions with a lot of Whovians. And very often they want a quote written down, it's very often that. Travel, hopefully. And it just is such...

But I think Chris's writing for me, I was just gifted, absolute joy in the limitlessness of it. It's such an interesting character to play because you're not constrained with time periods, with etiquette of a certain world or with human interactions you you you have the freedom to express yourself in whatever way you see fit in that moment and I think that that is that's a very unique character to play somebody that can be so mercurial did you feel qualified in the end as a woman has documented. Yeah, that qualification of being born not an alien to play an alien felt massively qualified.

With the two hearts, because you're the one who took it to that level. I know, I was very method. I think you've got to own that as much as you can. You talked about that being some of the happiest working time of your life, because it's safe to say, Jodie, you don't go towards some of the most joyful roles

some of the time in the sense that they really test you. They take you to different places. And it's interesting. I was reading you saying that you've started to realise you don't you don't always realise the impact of some of the difficult stories on you. Yeah, I think this was the thing. When I when I started doing Doctor Who, there was I realised that I'm definitely, you know, I'm not method, I don't stay in character in between scenes. Often if I've got a really difficult dialect, I'll just keep talking in it.

But that in itself is rare because I don't feel like I can articulate myself unless I'm broad Yorkshire. And a lot of my isms don't translate into a different accent. So even that, but you know, you keep yourself in a certain mood. But it wasn't until I kind of stepped away and bounced around the universe for three seasons that I realized that

actually you know you do you if you're playing particularly someone like Beth Latimer in Broadchurch you know that's a five month season that we shoot for that it stays the heaviness of it kind of is in there I'm very lucky it's not my life, but there is, I feel, a responsibility to at least commit wholeheartedly in those moments so that there feels that it's authentic. And I think something like One Night appealed to me. Weirdly, everything about it was on paper not what I was looking for in the sense of I was, you know,

I'd got a little baby at home. You know, I'd been away for a really long time with the family, like from between Cardiff and London, all that kind of thing. And I was like, if I'm going to go back, I think maybe something quite light and probably round the corner, a bit practical. And all of those things, it was not. No, you took your family to Australia. Yeah, so we went to Sydney for four and a half, five months.

And it was the most extraordinary thing. But that is because I opened this script. It was very much one of those, you can appreciate, it's the middle of the night, you're awake because you're the only ones awake at this stage in your life. And I started to read. And even though I knew I should definitely sleep because someone else was asleep, I should be using this window.

I caned three episodes in one go and I couldn't, I was just immersed. And the beauty of it for me was I was immersed instantly in an episode where the POV is absolutely Simone, which isn't my character. And I hadn't even met Tess and I was like, I need to be a part of this. I think it's incredible. Let's play a clip from it what do you remember

you wanna hear my news a novel's being published what is it about I don't want to give too much away this is a page you missed on your contract your characters are fictional you made up a town, it's all good. How could you write about this without asking us? So I mentioned there the friends come back together, your character has moved away, tried to move on and put this terrible time behind her and another character has decided to write up the story without the permission. Yes. And the female friendship, just first of all,

is so well written, isn't it? And I must say, you're brilliant in this. I haven't said that. Oh, thank you very much. You kind of need to say it though. You're looking directly at me. Give me a one-star review. I will just say, if regular listeners to this programme

just know I probably don't say anything. Yeah, OK, great. Okay, I'll take it. No, no, you know, I've been a fan of yours for a long time. We were having a discussion. I saw you in the film Venus very early on in your career. And I feel I discovered you because of that moment. And I'm going to get that tattooed. Discovered by. Yes, exactly. You know, that moment of feeling connected with an actor. But in this, there is an amazing drawing of female friendship,

how deep it goes. And is that what drew you? I think perspective and the POV of this story was so important. Point of view, I think we're going with. Yeah, it was so important to me because I have watched and read stories that centre around maybe a sexual assault or that being a theme within a story. What was very unique to me was that this wasn't the outside looking in,

this wasn't the police detectives, this wasn't the survivor of that attack being kind of the third party being talked about. This was an internalisation of what one horrific event can do to not just one person, but to the friendship, to the community, all those things. But you're seeing it differently every time. So what's really clever, I think,

is that each, the first three episodes, you know, one follows Simone, one follows Hart, played by Yael Stone, Simone played by Nicole Da Silva and then the third ep is from the POV of Tess and it carries on like that so we're forever seeing life present day but also we use incredible flashback and it's so beautiful you can be in scenes looking in a mirror and see the younger version of yourself. That, the power of keeping this event current throughout with the use of flashback and that way of storytelling

felt really unique. Your character's mum took an approach that some may be able to relate to with different generations, which is what had happened to you, chalk it up to experience, advises you not to get drunk again. That is an attitude in there, isn't it? I think what's clever is that we, because this happened 20 years previously, we do have the vocabulary and the terminology of the

time and also the treatment that you kind of unfortunately would expect. But what's also really clever is showing that in 20 years, it hasn't necessarily moved that forward. So I think that that is really powerful and we can see it as historical, but the present day conversation around consent hasn't moved forward enough. Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, we're still kind of trying to get there in some ways and how it's looked after and how the police deal with it and how it how it is talked about in society as well as prosecuted i think i think what's also really good is that you see when when we are in scenes like often i could be talking to say simone present day but then in that moment it could flash back to the 20 year old 19 year

old simone and i'm having that conversation i think what is really clever is that we can move on, but we're still, our memories, when something traumatic happens, you're still, that moment kind of never moves forward. And the snapping back, and you're not entirely certain when these images or these senses are going to come to you. And I think the use of cinematography and the use of music and the use of kind of heightened realism and a kind of dream world often within a very naturalistic drama made this elevated to me in a way that I felt like I hadn't read.

I mentioned that you've gone towards the grittier side of life and the roles that you are in at the moment. And some people might be watching you in something completely different. The second series of Time, which is currently available on the iPlayer. I actually had the writer in the other day talking about this. And it's a depiction of prison and women's lives in the female estate. You play Orla and you're serving your sentence. You've got children and it shows a very realistic portrait of the chaos that is caused around poverty and a lack of support and how women's lives are impacted. This is actually a time where perhaps there will be changes to the justice system and

how women are punished. But I wonder what drew, what made you go towards that? What did you want to do with that? Well, initially it just was, you've been offered All Are In Time, season two and Jimmy's work I'm incredibly familiar with and it'd be

you know, first time working with Helen and I was, I didn't even need to read it because season one blew my mind. Jimmy McGovern's first season, which was about men. Yeah. And so for me, I was just instantly like, yeah. And then I read it and I was like, oh, my God, that kind of relevance and the ability to challenge our ideas of labels within all of our characters and not just the kind of the three main characters that we follow, but with everyone.

There's, you know, you could just go, you know, kind of single mum, criminal, drug addict, you know, woman suffering from mental health issues. No delving in, you know, just you get these headlines of people and then actually when you explore it the question of particularly in all his point of view the crime meets the punishment and and that absolutely doesn't marry and the fact that what this person's crime that they've committed to what the catastrophic event on their life is. Because of that, being taken out of society

as a non-violent, non-threat to the community, in a time where everyone just talks about the cost of prisons and everything anyway, well, that costs a fortune to put Ola in prison. It then costs a fortune to put three children in the care system. It's, you know, it made me rageful to read it never mind to play it and I loved that Jimmy and Helen the writers just have this amazing ability to throw big questions at you and then it's for you to take it how you want but for me as an actor I was given so much in this

in in just three episodes yeah a lot a huge. And it has had a lot of people talking in a way that... Yeah, it feels very current now, in a way that it wasn't when we read it. It was, but then there's been conversations since it happened and, you know, kind of comments about people living in tents, which is, as a spoiler, but relevant to all the character. And then, obviously, there's a reform at the moment about the sentencing for women.

Yeah, because the majority of those sentences are very short. So what will happen to those decisions and perhaps not to go down the route of incarceration? And we'll see how that plays out. We had the Justice Secretary on the programme the other day just talking to that point. I think you've got a lot on.

You've got a lot more coming out. I'm not going to get across all of those different things, but it's fascinating to hear the reason always why people go towards certain roles and what choices they're making and why. I did also love that I read that one of your rules of life, I did ask my editor if I could say this, and I've had special dispensation,

is one of your rules is don't be an arsehole. That's something to live by, isn't it? I mean, you know, I can be guilty of it sometimes, but I think it's a it's definitely a rule that you've got to live by hey so it's a long you think you think you've earned your way up it's a long way down and it can be the click of a finger so just don't take it for granted and don't don't don't be rude although i've just i love that i'm now allowed to say you know i've got i'm quoting you it's fine if you can get that tattooed. We'll trade on this.

But on that point, what keeps your feet on the ground, do you reckon, when you are just going off to Australia, having to master an Australian accent, which we didn't necessarily get to, but well done there. Oh, thank you. I think the thing is, for me, is just that, I mean, life is absolutely joyous because I'm working in an industry that is really wonderful and really tough and not everybody gets the opportunity to work and I really don't think you can ever forget that and I think that probably the most grounding thing is all my mates that have nothing to do with it who I mean couldn't be less interested in a positive way and then

I feel like no airs and graces there when you turn up that's good and you need those people don't you but also I feel like there must be something in there that you know

that you do is there like a sort of dancing roller skating anything physical I feel like is there something there Jodie are we going to see you dancing on Strictly or anything

oh my gosh I'd be rubbish but I am I mean I am literally hooked all weekend but I'd be absolutely rubbish I mean, I am literally hooked all weekend, but I'd be absolutely rubbish. I mean, there's a lot of screaming and singing around the house thinking I can sing.

I think for me, unfortunately, I've got very few skills and so I'm so lucky that I get to work in the one that I've got, which is just being incredibly over-emotional. Jodie Whittaker, we'll take it. It's been a joy to have you on the programme. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you. And the new series that we were talking about, One Night on Paramount Plus. There you go. And while we've been talking, you've been listening to that, enjoying that. And I'm sure you'll be having some messages for us for Jodie. And again,

as I say, on the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who. But some messages have been coming in while we've been talking about the role of my next guest, which is something you've got very strong feelings about, whether Ofsted reports actually help you make decisions. And I'm going to go through some of those messages because I'll tell you who's just walked into the studio, Amanda Spielman, who's coming to the end of an unprecedented seven years at the helm of Ofsted, the organisation which inspects schools in England. It's been a turbulent period for education, not least because of the pandemic, which kept children at home for months at a time. This year, Ofsted's come under intense scrutiny over its inspection regime, in particular, the use of single phrase judgments of schools

and the potential mental health impacts of those on school leaders and teachers. Many in the profession are now arguing that the current system is unfit for purpose and requires a complete overhaul. And I should say that Ofsted's annual report, which we'll go to a little bit now, came out this morning. Amanda Spielman, good morning. Good morning. Thank you for being here.

I thought we could just start by using Ofsted's single phrase judgment methodology and ask how you rate your performance overall as you leave the role. Well, we don't judge individuals at Ofsted, single phrase judgment methodology and ask how you rate your performance overall as you leave the role. Well, we don't judge individuals at Ofsted, we judge organisations. And all the measures we use say that actually Ofsted is doing a really good job. How do you think you're doing, though, because you're leaving in December? As I say, I'm going to talk about Ofsted. I don't judge individuals. But we've done, really done, what I set out to do when I came.

We've created an inspection framework that's got very wide support in the system. We've beefed up inspector training. We've got to a place where nine out of ten schools say that their inspection is going to help them improve. I'm well aware that there are always people who are uncomfortable but there has to be some kind of framework of accountability and I think what we're really seeing is that there's a bit of an argument about whether there should be an accountability framework for schools. And Ofsted is slightly caught in the crossfire.

It sounds like you think you've done an outstanding job or good at least. I'm not going to put a judgment on myself. You say you've done what you've set out to do. I mean, that's that's just it's quite unusual as someone who's a chief inspector. You won't give a view on how you've done. But if we keep to this and carry on with your role, maybe we'll cut back to that. Is your top message in your final annual report as chief inspector out today, is that the social contract between schools and parents is broken?

Actually, my top message is that I think on a seven year view, I think there's a lot of reason for optimism. This is my seventh and last year as Chief Inspector. Looking back across that time in education and care, we can really see an improvement in quality in that time. We can see that the focus on curriculum, on the substance of what's being taught and whether that's happening with integrity really is paying off. We saw that help schools through and after covid we've seen the improvements in reading in primary schools improvements in teacher training sort of slow but steady improvement in local authority children children children's services across the board there's real progress and we can get very focused on the covid hangover and lose sight of the the long-term progress that really ought to be celebrated but there is a covid hangover and the social contract is long-term progress that really ought to be celebrated.

But there is a COVID hangover and the social contract is one of the things I want to talk about. Yes. I mean, what do you mean that it's broken? Who's to blame? Nobody's to blame. Blame isn't a helpful concept here. The point is that the disruption that came with lockdowns and school closures fractured that long term understanding about the importance of schooling and about the importance of being consistent in attending school. That there's a very direct relationship between the amount of school children attend and how well they're likely to at the end of the day. Can I just interrupt to say that for those who aren't aware of this, because this is the latest on this, the average rate of persistent absence has doubled since before the pandemic. 28% of secondary school pupils are absent at least 10% of the time. If you just let that sink in for a moment, almost a third of secondary students are not attending school enough. Absolutely.

And that is a worry. So what's broken? Well, some of that is about more illness. And we know that mental health problems have increased. But some of it is about people, families becoming more relaxed about children missing school for odd days or for term time holidays. A recent report pointed out that there simply was no stigma around term time holidays anymore. So across the board, there's somehow the loss of that understanding that the consistency that every day, unless you're actually really matters to give children the best chance in the long term.

So how do we fix that? Well, it's the slow, steady work from all directions. There's no quick fixes. There's no magic bullets. Schools have to work with parents to build their understanding of the school expectations. Parents have to play their parents to build their understanding of the school expectations. Parents have to play their part and accept school policy, school expectations from uniforms, behaviour policies, and so on. And they have to be a mutually reinforcing system so that children get that consistency between home and school. You talked about being very proud of your inspection system and how it's worked.

It's noticeable when you talked about that nine and ten figure, it's based on a 48% response rate. I think that's an important detail. But do you think you did well in terms of allowances made? Because we are still very close to the pandemic. Do you think when inspections resumed in 2021, you made enough allowances for the effect of COVID on schools? Yes, I do. And I think that's reflected in the fact that the judgment profile hasn't dipped post COVID. What does that mean, the judgment profile? The overall proportions of schools judged outstanding, good, requires improvement, and inadequate in the system. We have just as many schools that are judged good or better as pre-pandemic. And that shows actually that the approach to inspection absolutely is taking account of the difficulties and recognising... How does that show that?

Because we know that in some respects, children's learning is behind where it was. We know that there are behaviour problems. Oh, so you've made allowances, you would say? But yeah. So what those judgments, that profile of judgments is showing is that the inspection approach is properly looking at the work that schools are doing and giving them credit for that work. I'm confused. If you look at a survey out this morning from the National Association of Head Teachers, its members, for those who don't know, make up the majority of school leaders in England. Many of them also work as your inspectors. It's pretty damning. 85% report they are unconfident or very unconfident in your organisation.

That's four in five school leaders. We've had many months of a lot of people trying to create anxiety from different directions. Why would headteachers try to create anxiety? We know that there is always some anxiety in the system of out-inspection. Why would headteachers try to create anxiety? That is always going to carry a bit of anxiety with it. And government operates a system of intervention. So disappointing inspection outcomes can lead to somebody else doing something. We are acutely aware of the pressure that creates. That's why all our inspectors are former leaders in schools themselves who've been at the receiving end, who've experienced that pressure. All of your inspectors have that level of experience.

All of our school inspectors, they have to have five years of leadership expertise in schools. Because it's also some of the questions that came in were talking about your inspectors and there not being enough of them who are experienced at that level. But you're saying that all of them are. We have a requirement that five years of leadership experience in the education sector. Yes. Okay. Just going back to this, a bit of anxiety. Fair enough. 85% of heads are unconfident or very unconfident in your organisation. I've got a head teacher's just written in here, Helen. She's called Helen, excuse me, saying Ofsted's become increasingly damaging for schools. It creates unnecessary stress for teachers and students.

It is not fit for purpose. It should be reformed. More notice should be given. Constructive follow-up to help schools should be part of it. So there are several things you've put in there. She's not relying on her job anymore. There are several things that are picked up in that. The first is that government divides up the responsibility.

Ofsted's job is only the diagnosis piece, the inspection and reporting piece. The responsibilities for support and improvement and all the funding for them go to other bodies in the system. I cannot shift Ofsted Resource into support work that sits with other people. It would be like the driving test agency saying it wasn't going to do tests anymore. It was going to run a driving school if I said, right, we're going to move into support work. No, but I'm only talking, if I go back to this Association of Head Teachers survey, which you seem to be just discounting, which I'm finding extraordinary.

78% of them, again, the majority, say they think Ofsted inspectors are not able to fully understand and evaluate a school in the time they spend on site. Only 12% believe you can do the job that you are there to do. I haven't seen the survey. Well, I have. They haven't sent it to us. But we pilot it. You have to trust me on what I'm saying here.

It's the headline findings. We pilot inspection very carefully with the sector. We've got strong sector support for the model. We've done serious studies, a big serious study, looking at consistency between inspectors. We track the relationship between inspection judgments and school outcomes. We know that we have

a high level of reliability. But there is no question that there's a great deal of activity in the sector to create anxiety. And that is something in itself. I've got to talk about that. Anxiety feeds anxiety.

So are you saying... And finding the ways to defuse this are really important because... Are you saying headteachers are feeding anxiety about the assessment of schools? It's hard to say quite where, but it's very clear that anxiety is being ramped up. And I know that it is not coming from Ofsted. We have done everything... No one's saying you're trying to create anxiety for anxiety's sake. But why can't you accept? If I just give you one more from this particular study.

Asked about the impact of Ofsted on the mental health and well-being of school leaders and school staff. The top five words, and I accept you've not seen this, but I'll share it with you. When asked how Ofsted made them feel was anxious, sick, stressed, terrified and dread. And yet how does that fit we do these we send every single school a link to our post-inspection survey so everybody who's uncomfortable has the chance to express that consistently two or nine in ten two of yes but would you tell an organization that you didn't feel comfortable you might and this is after the inspection but maybe maybe it has it has no bearing whatever on their inspection.

And we do third-party surveys. We will be reporting. We do actually get a consistent feedback on the work on the ground. So there is a disconnect between what people say about the actual inspection they receive and what people say about inspection generally. And that's a really hard one for us as well. But this study, and I've particularly picked this one, it's out today, but also because it's the Association of Head Teachers,

they're talking about Ofsted inspectors not being able to understand and evaluate a school and that they are not confident in it. And I suppose, I just want to get into, if you think teachers, headteachers, are creating anxiety, that's a very big insight from you as the chief inspector.

No, I didn't say it was headteachers creating anxiety. I said anxiety is being spun around the system and amped up. That is really hard for me to say. I don't think I can express an opinion that. I can just see that anxiety is being pushed up. It's not ghosts wandering around the education system. Who are the characters creating anxiety? I think it's the consequences of inspection that are the thing that causes the biggest fear.

There was an education select committee hearing a couple of weeks ago that all the unions appeared at and they were asked what one thing would they most like to change about inspection. And they all said the consequences. And that is the thing that we have no control over whatever that that i'm afraid sits outside ofstead's responsibility what we do is exactly what other other inspectorates do so the way we inspect the way we report it's exactly what happens for hospitals for for police forces, for care homes. I know, but I'm not here to reflect on that with you. I'm here to reflect on what is being said about your organisation. Or do you think it's your leadership, perhaps? I don't think it's my leadership.

It's been pretty bad the last year under your leadership, hasn't it, though, the response? There was a very sad case in the spring which has been used as a pivot to try and discredit what we do. The quality of what we do and the quality of what we do underneath has been solid for years. We have really strong feedback on our inspection framework. We know post-COVID there was a very clear message from the sector that they wanted to keep that framework, that it's as good as inspection has ever been. People are really positive about it. So somehow getting to a positive message about inspection in the sector

is really, really important. Are you talking about the death of the primary headteacher, Ruth Perry? Yes, which I can't talk about specifically. No, no, but if I can just remind our listeners, if you don't mind, the primary headteacher, Ruth Perry, when you talk about... Yes, which I can't talk about specifically. No, no, but if I can just remind our listeners, if you don't mind, the primary head teacher, Ruth Perry, died in January ahead of the release of a report that downgraded her school in Berkshire from outstanding to inadequate from the top to the bottom of the scale. There were reports in the media at the time she took her own life.

Ruth Perry's sister, Professor Julia Walters, has since said the injustice of the one-word judgment destroyed Ruth's career, her world and her sense of self. The inquest starts next week. We, of course, don't want to prejudice that legal process by talking about the specifics. But you did raise this and you say you feel it's being used in some way to discredit your organisation. By whom? It's very clear there's been a tremendous amount of media coverage and it's very hard to get people to understand that firstly we inspect and report in exactly the same way as I've said for all inspectorates. There is nothing about what we do that is out of line, that treats schools particularly harshly. We're part of that wider and really important framework of public accountability for public services. Parents do need to know what's happening

in their school. They want the reassurance if it's going well. And if it's not going well, they want to know that that's recognised and the action is being taken. So it is a tough job, but somebody does have to do it. And that's us. So we get us. So we're getting a lot of pushback at the moment and essentially those calls amount to saying that there shouldn't be hard accountability in the system and that's a really difficult one for us to counter because we are set up precisely to be that lever that at the end of the day we're the people who can say to parents

what your child is getting isn't good enough. They have to have faith though, the teachers also have faith in the system and you've you've you've constantly said that you think uh that they do but we've got a message here uh on email which says if there's a culture and fear in schools inspections and of course schools will respond they found the experience positive when asked by ofsted what else could they reply let's have independent and anonymous feedback on schools' inspections. We will be publishing some more survey data next year, which I think we've used. But what do you say to that, Ida?

They're not going to be honest. I'm totally happy. I'm happy that from a whole lot of sources, including from talking regularly to unions, that we get honest feedback. And we are told that there are relatively few issues um coming coming through and yet you say you say there's a whole

range of sources including teachers that are creating anxiety i didn't i didn't say i didn't i've written it down you said there's been in response to head teachers having very little confidence this group of head teachers you said there is anxiety being created. That's in response to me talking about what teachers feel. Anxious people, anxiety spins around a system. Anxious people sort of transmit their sense of anxiety to other people. It's not necessarily intentional. But anxiety is a thing that ratchets up in many contexts.

And defusing that is so important. That's why for years we have been myth busting, we redesigned inspection on my watch to make it as supportive and constructive as we can within the role that we fulfil in the system. I can't turn into a support service but I can and have designed inspection to make it as much as possible a professional, a supportive professional dialogue between the lead inspector and the head. We do everything we can to make that work as well as possible. What's your evidence that there's been anxiety whipped up? Just looking at the amount and tenor of media coverage about this. Looking at newspaper coverage and media coverage of your organisation?

Newspaper, yes. But what this speaks to me is... Because I know that what we do hasn't changed underneath. Yes, but our lives have changed under COVID. Some say you've been tin-eared to the needs and pleas of schools. Absolutely not.

You personally. And if I go back to... I'm now going to tell you what some has been said to us by teachers. You know, you can't say that's just the media. I'm trying to use the people that you are working with and their views of this. But for instance, if we do go back to, you know, the very sad situation, tragic situation of the death of Ruth Perry, there are those who felt like you went silent for two weeks after that. You didn't say anything as an organisation and that that was a mistake. Do you regret that?

No, I don't. I think it was a really difficult situation where anything that we said could be misinterpreted. I did do an interview a few weeks later where I was very clear about that inspection. It's very difficult when you've got understandably distressed, grieving family. You cannot enter into a sort of media dialogue.

It's simply not feasible. I understand that must have been extremely difficult, but I'm trying to relay to you the feedback that you don't just get on forms and what people in your industry have said away from, as you would put it, anxiety in the media. And I wonder if you or anyone senior at Ofsted has ever offered to meet the family

or Julia Walters, Ruth Perry's sister. I've offered at least four times. And has that happened? No, the invitations have been declined every time. Okay, because I think the other concern was what did Ofsted learn from that? Was there anything to learn from that? And I should say, you announced some changes in June, giving inadequate schools the opportunity to reverse a rating change within three months, depersonalised criticism in reports. I want to make sure we share this. Explicitly talking about headteachers could share Ofsted's findings with colleagues before official publication, but the single phrase judgments were retained. Why? Because they are part of the wider government regulatory system. As I've said, it's exactly the same as the model that's used for health, for police, for every other kind of public service.

And because government uses those judgments in the wider regulatory system, there are 20 or 30 government policies that are directly linked to overall effectiveness judgments so I cannot take those out unless government decides that it's going to do all of those 20 or 30 things in some other way I would be excuse me sabotaging the regulatory system, which is simply not in my gift. I'm not a politician who can make those kinds of changes. And the people I talk to acknowledge that if just the name of the judgment was changed

or if those high stakes consequences were just hung on a slightly different part, then that would become the news of high stakes worry thing. So I don't want to rearrange deck chairs. I do everything I can to make what we do as good and as constructive and as positive as we can make it. There's a charity called ParentKind. We talked a lot about how teachers and those working feel,

but about parents now, which represents PTAs. And it submitted evidence to the Education Select Committee in July, which said that while parents strongly supported the idea of inspection, less than a quarter say the current reports are useful to them. What do you say that if parents aren't getting as much use out of these reports as they could, and as we've talked about, you don't accept it, but schools aren't always, who is? There are three things there. First of all, we piloted our reports with a lot of parent focus groups in all different demographics. We designed them around the needs of parents to get the level and depth of information that most parents want.

ParentKind, I think, has particularly strong representation from parents of children with SEND. I may be mistaking that, but it's possible that they would like reports that go into more depth. Within the constraints of the resource we have, we simply can't write longer reports. Government could change that, but our reports are as full as we can currently make them. You know, at the end of this seven-year tenure, you had a two-year extension. It's been an extraordinary time to be the Chief Inspector. You started at the end of this seven year tenure you had a two-year extension it's been an extraordinary time to to be the chief inspector uh you started this this conversation and we're coming to a close shortly um you started by saying you didn't want to rate yourself you didn't want

to talk about that I presume you mean that's for others to think about your your legacy your record but um I just wanted to read you this to get your view on on whether these inspections I know it's not in your gift to do away with certain parts of them or to do away with them at all, but whether they're actually working overall. I recognise you've not changed very much and you think the atmosphere has changed, but a head of a primary school in a very deprived increasing need, so that is a change for some of these schools, when schools are buckling under pressure from post-COVID repercussions, increased special needs, etc., the pressure from Ofsted is an easy fix. Why not fix it? You could alleviate the situation where when it reaches Wednesday at 11 o'clock and you know you are free of an inspection for another week, which is say you're given 24 hours notice, your anxiety levels fall and you can actually concentrate on the job you are there to do. Is it time to scrap inspections and rethink the whole regime? And that itself reflects the whole misunderstanding.

All Ofsted wants to see is a school as it actually normally operates. The last thing we want is people preparing, doing complicated things. The short notice we give was actually worked through with the sector. There isn't unanimity of opinion, but we consult very closely with unions on things like that to make sure we're getting to a balance that recognises both the desires of parents who would fundamentally like no notice inspections for us just to turn up on the day, and the sector which varies between the people who think that very short notice is best because it's less time to worry or long notice is best. But it's the kind of compromise that we discuss, that we work through to get to a pragmatic best fit.

There will always be people who don't like one aspect or another. But we put a tremendous amount of effort into getting something that works for the vast majority. But we will never, with something that has real consequences, there is no possibility of ever doing something that will make everybody happy. And there's probably no possibility of a teacher feeling like they won't have to prepare. I mean, that's the reality. That's what you would like. But I suppose that's reality. I should say, many listeners getting in touch because we didn't just want people who worked in education to say as a parent, I think Ofsted is doing a good job of informing parents about the quality of schools. It's entirely predictable that teachers and headteachers do not like being held to account. That's their view of this, but it's nonetheless essential. Is that your view? They don't like being held to account? It's very clear that post-COVID, and you touched on the COVID effect, that there's a stronger sense of any accountability being unfair given what they've been through.

And that is really difficult because children are still children. Children still need quality of education. Are we going to say that it doesn't matter if we have more failing schools because COVID? Or do we actually need to maintain in the system a lever that helps to identify and helps to get the help, the help and support rapidly to the people who do need it? Actually, it's in everybody's interests for problems to be recognised as early as possible. Do you have any regrets? It's a long time to be in a role. You've learnt a lot, you've seen a lot. Well, clearly, all of us would rather COVID hadn't happened.

I meant personal regrets, things you could control. Things I could control. One of the things, the seminars we've been doing this year for outstanding schools that hadn't been inspected for a very long time have been going down brilliantly. And we've been getting very good feedback on those I wish we'd started started those earlier but broadly the changes that I've made to make inspection constructive and supportive to make it about substance and integrity I know have gone very well indeed. Are you disappointed by though I suppose when you have and you have that view of what you've done are you disappointed by though I suppose when you have and you have that view of what you've done are you disappointed by some of the reaction of head teachers today it's when you run a regulator you know that the people that an inspection inspection is is is part of regulation you know

that there will always be some some some resistance to what to what you do I know that we are hugely responsive and interactive. I know we work with stakeholders on all fronts a great deal to make sure that what we do is as good as it can be in the context we work in. Am I talking to the next chair of the BBC? I have no idea, Emma. Any interviews going on at the moment? You need a new job for January, don't you?

What happens in January is a whole different story. Well, it'll be interesting to see how we next speak or when we next speak because that's one of the rumours about your future. Can you say anything about your future? Are you allowed to know anything? I can't say anything beyond the fact that I do have a couple of irons in the fire.

Amanda Spielman, keeping your cards close to your chest on that particular front but not on the other. Thank you very much for coming in and talking to us today. Thank you. It's fascinating to hear and thank you for your messages. And one here from Jill. I've been an Ofsted inspector. I also taught in a school being inspected. The fear and anxiety

teachers suffer is extreme because as one teacher said to me, if you say I'm a bad teacher, it's so personal. It's like saying I'm a bad mother. Jan on email says my daughter-in-law and son, both head teachers, also have had experience of this report that everyone who has been off steadied recently has reported how very helpful and fair the inspection was. Another one here from Sharon. While our eldest son was sent to a failing school that later went on to special measures. I was quite cynical about the Ofsted reports. I was wrong.

It was a dreadful experience before we moved our whole family into the catchment area of an outstanding school. The difference between the two schools was worlds apart. I accept that being on the receiving end of an inspection must be stressful, but as a parent, what else do we have? And so they continue, and I'll come back to those if I can. But here you go, A small topic for you. The future of foreign policy is feminist, I jest. It's a massive one and it's about the way we live our lives.

And that's the claim of the title of a new book by German activist and author Christina Lunds. It's not the first time feminist foreign policy has been touted. It was first introduced by Margot Wallström, who made it her mission to adopt policies with women's needs at the heart of her time as Foreign Secretary for Sweden from 2014 to 2019. But what is feminist foreign policy and is it realistic in an increasingly volatile world? Well, Margot Wallstrom joins me on the line from Sweden. I'm also joined in the studio by the author, Christina Lunds. Warm welcome to you both. Margot, I'll come to you in just a moment. But Christina, if I could start with you. Feminist foreign policy, how do we define it?

Feminist foreign policy is the attempt and the demand to use all diplomatic tools and foreign policy and security policy tools to advance gender equality and justice more broadly, globally. Because we know that the most significant factor towards whether a country is peaceful within its borders or towards other countries is the level of equality in the country. Would you add anything to that, Margot? Hello. Hello. Well, I would say it's about rights, representation and resources given to women. And I think this is also the definition of feminism, that women and men should enjoy the same rights and obligations and opportunities.

So to take that into a country, Christina, you talk in your book about change needing to happen at a domestic level for a country to change its foreign policy. What evidence do you have that that translates? So there's lots of empirical evidence that the moment we manage to eradicate patriarchal structures in countries which human rights defenders, women human rights defenders, civil society, feminist civil society around the world is trying to do, the moment that we achieve that, the country itself will be less violent also internationally. So feminist foreign policy then is also a lot about governments focusing their goals and priorities and foreign policymaking

on the demands of affected civil society and feminist civil society in the country. That's all very well, but what are you going to do when you got to react to something non-feminist that's happened? Absolutely. So in the book, I'm arguing that we have to distinguish between short, medium and long term. So in the short term, we have to deal with the realities that are out there. So that can include that, of course, in the case of Ukraine, for example, when feminists on the ground or Nobel Peace laureates like Oleksandr Medvedchuk, when they demand that they need weapons for self-defense, that can include the delivery of weapon. But in the medium to long term, we need to find ways, which, for example, includes learning from the past. How was it possible that whilst human rights defenders and feminist civil society in Russia,

at least since 2000, have really rang the alarm about the increasing attacks on the women's and LGBTQI rights system, that other countries like my own Germany went into even deeper dependence, including energy dependence with such state. So medium to long term, it means learning from the past. It means in Germany, we had this special fund for the armed forces, Olaf Scholz, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it the Zeitenwende. In the medium to long term, a feminist approach would mean we had special funds of 100 billion for the improvement of international law, for human rights defenders, for civil crisis prevention, for women's rights and LGBTQI rights around the globe.

Margot, let me give you the chance to maybe talk about where you feel this has started to happen or might be working. Well, I think that Colombia was a good example of the fact, and with this we can show the United Nations, that when women are there at the negotiating table, when they are among the signatories of a peace agreement, these peace agreements last longer. And there is a better chance of having a peace that is sustainable over time. And the problem is that just look around the world today. This is still not the case. More than 20 years since this famous resolution from the United Nations on women, peace and security, women are invisible in most of these contexts.

They are still not there at the negotiating table in Ethiopia about what happened in Tigray. And, you know, we have to really look out for what happens when there is peace, I hope, for Ukraine or when we will see peace in the Middle East. Will there be women as well around the table? Because otherwise impunity will continue for these war crimes that are directed mostly to women like rape as a weapon of war. Yeah, but there's a great number of men obviously killed in war and in terms of the fighting and who's in charge of that as well.

But because I know that some people feel very uncomfortable with this line of argument because they may have seen a woman leading a country and it not going well. And then there has been women in the past and now there's not women there,

but it's not necessarily had the impact. What would you say to that, Margot? No, the fact is that there is still discrimination against women. There is still so much of prejudice against women. There is still so much of prejudice against women. Women make up half of the world's population. No, no, of course, but the idea of having them as leaders doesn't always lead to better outcomes. No, we are not saying that all women are better than men. We would like to think so, but that is,

you know, the thing is that women with their experience, with their background, with everything they know and bring with them, they also have to have a seat at the negotiating table or they have to become leaders

or they have to be represented in parliamentary context. So let me bring... It's a matter of democracy as well. Yes. Let me bring Christina back at this point, because I suppose if you look around the world as well about who's in power at the moment and the sort of strongman trend around the world, whether it's in Russia, Turkey,

you know, we've also just heard about the new Dutch prime minister, as we expect it to be. This doesn't seem to be what you're talking about, doesn't seem to be realistic at the moment, certainly. I don't know what you would say to that. I guess. Sorry, may I just get Christina's response first, Margot? Sorry. Sure. And we have this in history, we're seeing currently the largest illiberal state of democracy since the 1930s. And we have 72% of the world's population living in authoritarian-led countries. And from a feminist perspective, we have to understand that this is strongly linked to the oppression of women's rights.

So at my organization, for example, we're working on the so-called anti-feminist movement, which over the past 10 to 15 years has really increased in strength. We have seen between 2009 and 2018, according to a report by the EU, more than 700 US dollars invested, especially from the US and Russia into Europe to dismantle women's and LGBTQI rights system.

So this feminist foreign policy really means making all the dots and connecting and understanding that what the real difference is between solutions and reactions. So what we see a lot internationally in what is happening is reactions to something. And it's not leading to tackling any of the big challenges that we have, that is autocratic regimes, that is strongmen, that is the climate crisis, this is increasing, it's increasing militarization, and all of that. But we need something sustainable, that really transform the way we're doing foreign policymaking internationally,

to come to better outcomes. And for my work with the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy on a daily basis, it means implementing projects such as how to support human rights, women human rights defenders in authoritarian-led regimes. And it will be a report we are working on kind of for briefing for governments, for democratic governments, because very often when we talk to them, they're like, yeah, but we can't can't like how are we supposed to give money or training or anything to human rights defenders and authoritarian led regimes they have the ideas it's about i mean what margot really said it's about listening to all perspectives foreign policy making and diplomacy more generally

has been an area for men from a certain region of the world to put through their priorities and needs and assuming that their reality is the reality of everyone, which is why in international theory they called this theory realism. And so often people would say, oh, but it's not realistic. I mean, it's not realistic what we're seeing out there, believing that bombing something or inflicting more violence will lead at any point to more human rights, more peace, more human security, more stability in the world. I find that hugely unrealistic. Christina, I'm sorry, we're going to have to leave it there.

Margot Wallstrom, I wanted to come back to you, but the time is the time. Thank you very much for coming onto the programme and making us think about the world in the way that you've been thinking about it or certainly opening our minds to that if it wasn't already. And just talking about the idea there of the future of foreign policy being feminist. A lot on today's programme. Thank you for your company.

Back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, this is Marion Keyes one hello this is marion keys and this is tara flynn we host a podcast you might like for bbc radio 4 and bbc sounds called now you're asking each week we take real listeners questions about life love lingerie cats dogs dentists pockets or the lack of anything really and apply our worldly wisdom in a way which we hope will help. But also hopefully entertain.

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