Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Sharon Osbourne, Jodie Whittaker and Outgoing Chief Inspectorate of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman

Episode Date: November 25, 2023

For more than two decades, Sharon Osbourne has been a regular feature on our screens. She came to prominence while appearing with her husband Ozzy on The Osbournes - a reality television show on MTV, which followed the family's daily life. She later became a talent show judge on television programmes such as the X Factor and America's Got Talent. She joins Anita Rani to discuss her forthcoming theatre show - Sharon Osbourne - Cut The Crap!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. She joins Emma to discuss 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. During the week Ofsted’s annual report is released, Amanda Spielman joins Emma for her only BBC interview.Another Body is an award-winning documentary which follows US engineering student, 'Taylor', in her search for answers and justice after she discovers deepfake pornography of herself circulating online. Ahead of its release in the UK, one of the documentary's directors, Sophie Compton joins Emma to discuss why she decided to make this documentary, what she found and why she used deepfake technology herself to anonymise the identities of the protagonists.Coaching for sonographers, the professionals carrying out the scans, on how to deliver unexpected and potentially devastating pregnancy news has been successfully tested in new research from the University of Leeds. Emma speaks to the lead researcher, Dr Judith Johnson, and also Karen, who says she was left with PTSD after receiving unexpected news about the health of her baby during a scan.

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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani, where we bring you the highlights from the week just gone. Coming up, Jodie Whittaker, the first female doctor in the 60-year running show Doctor Who, joins us to tell us about her new series, One Night. A new documentary shows the realities of deepfake, non-consensual pornography and we hear from the outgoing Chief Inspectorate of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman.

But first... For more than two decades, Sharon Osbourne has been a regular feature on our screens. She came to prominence whilst appearing with her husband, Ozzy, on The Osbournes, a reality television show on MTV, which followed the family's daily life. She later became a talent show judge on television shows such as The X Factor and America's Got Talent. And now she's announced dates for a live theatre show

entitled Sharon Osbourne Cut the Crap, in which she promises to reveal all about some of the hardest years of her eventful life. Well, Sharon joined me live in the studio and began by telling me why she's decided to bring her show to the UK. It's a good time for me personally and I'd done it in Canada and Australia

and I really enjoyed it. And a producer asked me if I wanted to do it here. And I, yeah, let's give it a go. Just how honest are you being in the, in the. There's no point in doing it if you're not going to be totally honest. There's really no point because then you're just playing games, you know, so just totally honest. And, and I, I think that we all have different opinions at different stages of our life, depending how old we are. And that's the thing about life. You learn from your mistakes. You learn more with age. And I'm quite comfortable talking about anything in my life. So what stage are you at right now? The last chapter in my life. So what stage are you at right now? The last chapter in my life. What do you think? Do you think that? Yeah, you know, I've lived such a

full, full, amazing life. And, you know, we all know nobody lasts forever. And I reckon I'm on my last chapter. And this last chapter chapter I even though it feels weird saying that because you know it's like we could go on forever but um is bringing you back after 27 years to the UK you've lived in America we know because we've seen your we were invited into your home we'll talk about the Osbournes in a bit and what that did for you into your very glamorous and unique life that we were all invited into but But you are now coming back to the UK because of Ozzy's health. He's got Parkinson's. So how's he doing?

And why did you decide that it was time to leave America? You know, as we change over time, so do places. And for me personally, L.A. has changed, but not for the better. It's not what it used to be. You know, I just feel uncomfortable there right now. My family will still be there. So we'll go back and forth, I'm sure. But our main place, we've switched it from being in LA to England.

And what will that mean? Do you feel like you're coming home or do you feel like it's going to be a new start for you? No, it's home. It's always been home. I'm not, I don't think I'm very American. And I just feel more at home here. And I know it's just time.

And I mentioned there that, you know, Ozzy's health, he's got Parkinson's, he's had several operations in recent years following an accident. So how's he doing and how much of this move is for that reason? A lot of it is for Ozzy to be able to live with some privacy because where we live in the countryside, it's not full of paps and, you know, it's not a busy little town and we have a lot of land and he'll be able to walk around and pursue his hobbies that he loves

doing and without being bothered i said at the beginning you're a woman who you know is the rock of your family you take charge i feel like this is again saying, this is what I need to do for my family. This is what's best for us. Yeah, it's definitely, I feel what's best for Ozzy right now. You've been married for over 40 years. Yeah, can you believe it? You got together when you took over managing him. Yeah.

What's kept you together all this time? Because it's not been easy. No, it's not. But I don't think any relationship is easy after a few years. You know, you just hope that you will grow together in the same direction. Because after that first initial, you've found each other and, you know, the butterflies and can't live without each other that settles like everything else does and then you have to you know see other qualities in each other that are just as exciting about respecting each other and people's loyalties and situations and

it's you have to keep it ever evolving which is true however not everyone is married to Ozzy Osbourne who is not everyone's married to a rock star not everyone's married to the kind of the heightened level of things that you've been through so I'm just fascinated by you and what what you have that means that you have the the power and the capacity and the resilience to keep going it's um i never ever got married to one day be divorced that was not not my thing i never i never um it wasn't on my wish list to get married. I was quite happy working, being single, loved my work. And it just, I used to think as a younger woman, oh, it's not for me. And it's not my priority in life to get married and have kids.

I just love my work. And then, of course, you meet the right person and your opinions and your life changes with that and then you came to prominence we've got to get to the Osbournes when you decided to do brilliant iconic like I said the OG of reality tv shows where you invited us into your home how did that affect the family being so publicly scrutinized um the saving grace was there was no social media at that time. Yeah. So it was so different to what it would have been now. And it was a protection for my kids that there was no social media, because you've got to remember the two of them were very young at the time, at a very impressionable age, 15 and 16.

So in that way, I'm so relieved. But the reason why we ended it, we loved doing it, and it was a great experience in life for all of us. But it was not doing well for the kids. And we realised, Ozzy and I realised, that we had to pull the plug and try and get them back onto a somewhat of a normal life. Difficult, I imagine.

Very difficult, because when you're suddenly, everybody in the world wants to talk to you and think that you're, you know, oh, this family, you know, not everybody thought that we were, you know, great, but a lot of people did. And that's hard to put that down. Now, you're a very powerful, outspoken woman. And I think that's really important in the public eye because that's not easy and people don't often like that women speaking their minds no they don't and you often receive a lot of flack so how do you deal with it I don't let it get to me and the

thing is if I don't know the people personally who are commenting on me in a bad way it doesn't mean anything because I don't know them so I'm not invested in their opinion now I described you as a rock for your whole family which you are and we know you're super protective a lot of women listening to this can relate to that where do you get your support from? Myself. Yeah, myself. Where does that come from? I think it's a sense of survival. Always working in an industry that was run by men. Yeah.

And an industry that is a very tough industry for women. And at the time that I started in management there were no women managers in the music industry and it was very very hard to have a voice well even anybody wanted to listen to you nobody nobody did the only way I could deal with the industry and the hardness of it was to be harder and I and I bet there's a lot of women who know that when you just have to defend support yourself and have only got yourself but isn't it exhausting Sharon it's absolutely exhausting and when you go into a boardroom of men and you know we're talking about marketing campaigns and how much they cost and this that and the other and one of the guys that was one of the heads of um it was cbs records

at the time said to me i've just had my suite of offices done do you want to come and look in the kitchen kitchen why and he said oh i thought it would be of interest to you in my office suite and I go actually I don't cook so no I don't want to see it and it was a case of somebody being not knowing what to say in a meeting to a woman manager and being embarrassed and it's just like why do I want to see your kitchen because I'm a woman I want to see a kitchen it's amazing that you're able to just stand up for yourself back then as well um it's one of those we are running out of time quickly but I need to ask you because you have done so much and you've said you know final chapter I feel like there's still so much for you to say and you know what I'm really enjoying I feel like because we see you on tv we've seen you in these

whole heightened tv setups it's almost like how much of this is real how much of it is the caricature of Sharon and I feel that this maybe this last chapter that you've talked about we're going to get a bit of this you know this like the reality of what it means what it's taken to be you spoken so publicly about so much stuff. We've seen you live your life. We know your family. You've survived and come through colon cancer. You're now coming back to the UK for the benefit of your husband.

You know, you are, you've said yourself, you know, you defend on yourself. What the strength you must have is remarkable. Do you have any regrets? Of course I do. I have regrets. But what can you do? The only thing you can do is learn from them and hope that you don't do the same things again. But yeah, of course I have regrets. Many. Sharon Osbourne there in a very thoughtful mood who joined us for a cuppa. Now, the use of deep fakes is an issue of female violence. This is because of how the technology is being used in porn, specifically to replace a person's face in a video with someone else's face

to make convincing fake content, making it look like a woman has made a porn film when she hasn't. Often photos from someone's social media accounts are used to do this. It's a very specific assault that often lawmakers struggle to understand despite advances finally coming, such as the Online Safety Act in the UK. Another Body is an award-winning documentary which follows the story of Taylor, that's not her real name, who's an engineering student in the US searching for answers after she discovers deepfake pornography of herself circulating online.

Well, director of the documentary Sophie Compton joined Emma and began by telling her how she came across the story. Ruben Hamlin, my co-director and I, we heard about the issue of deepfakes and instantly could see that this was a violence against women issue and that it was not being reported as such in the media. The kind of threats to democracy or political stability were capturing people's attention, but people didn't seem to notice that this was predominantly happening,

you know, targeting women really specifically on forums. I think on the internet, we just don't really think about spaces like 4chan, which is like an online messaging forum where people were gathering and building a kind of culture and a community around this practice of deep faking. And it was pretty disturbing, especially as a woman, to start looking through what was on these sites. what you imagine is inside the locker room and all of the misogyny entitlement to female bodies racism that you can possibly imagine there but we felt like it's really important for us to understand what's in these spaces and it's really important to expose that and to show the human cost of this because because these spaces are so vicious and so violent, so few people speak out about this. So we wanted to work with a woman that made that incredibly brave decision to share their story with us. And you found out about her in a thread in one of these chat rooms and approached her that way?

Yeah, yeah. So we actually found one of the deepfakes of Taylor, did a reverse image search to see where else on the internet this same video had appeared. And it pulled up the Pornhub page. So one of the things that was characteristic of her case was that it wasn't just the porn videos. It was someone had made a fake profile of her with her real name, her real hometown, her real college. And actually, I think one of the most chilling things wrote in the bio, like hit me up if you want a good time. So actively soliciting other men to come and find her and they knew where she lived so she was terrified and I've heard this time and time again people being afraid to leave home because one of the things about online abuse is that you don't often know who's doing it so it could be anyone so people have talked about walking on the street

and every person that you walk past you think have they seen the videos did they make the videos is it my partner is it someone at my school so the level of you know the way that it impacts your relationships your trust and your kind of feeling of who you are in the world is really extreme and you know that you show and I think this is why I found it so powerful right at the beginning you show the footage that was created of her uh you show the the porn I mean not explicitly but but the images of her face and onto this body which is moving you can tell it's having you know the body not to disassociate it but that there's sex happening there and you know you can then put yourself in a position where you think well what if this was me um and that that trauma and that abuse is palpable. Absolutely.

I mean, it is a violation. So Taylor, when she talks about the first moment she saw the images, she said, it's my face looking back at me, doing things I've never done, pulling expressions that she's never seen herself pull. And the kind of disassociation, I think, is a really great word, that feeling of your body being taken over by someone else.

And also that sense of all of those eyes on you because you know the context within which you're being viewed. And you can read the comments about other people making derogatory or even kind of praising celebratory comments. I think it feels so queasy in your skin. You don't. I mean, it's a really clever use, but you don't use her face either in this. So she is visible, but you're using some of the technology to help her tell this story. So we deepfake Taylor throughout the film because we knew we had to make her anonymous because it would risk retraumatization and it would risk the kind of vicious 4chan communities coming to find her if they knew who she was. And also we really believe that the technology is not intrinsically the problem,

it's the misuse of the technology. That's why we're really passionate about framing this as a violence against women issue, not just a technology issue. So we reclaim deepfake technology and deepfake Taylor throughout the film. But as a filmmaker, you have to build trust. So we wanted to reveal that. And so there's a moment in the film when her face starts to shift into faces of other women and she tells the audience that she's been

deep faked and that felt really important because this technology has amazing applications possibly because what it allows you to do is to really connect with with a person who's not actually speaking it's also striking she has a very hard time trying to explain to a police officer what the problem is. Does she get some form of justice? So in the US, it's not illegal. And so she goes to the police, says... Which is astonishing.

I mean, sometimes I've got to pause to... You know, when you see this violation, that there's no-one you can call easily, no-one will necessarily know what's going on, even if they on even if they then are quite tech savvy there's nothing for them to do and it's not and it's not even just that it's the way that the police responded to her and said as we've had time and time again literally what did you do to cause this to happen to you and do you know them and everything about their link yeah so so often the focus and the blame is put on the survivor. But even if that didn't happen, which is awful when it does, because it won't happen all the time, but even they still don't have the laws.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So in the US, yeah, there's no laws. In the UK, the situation is that through the Online Safety Act, distributing deepfakes has now been criminalized. But the reality is that most people don't know who their perpetrator is, so there's no one to really go after. And also, we actually have big doubts about, you know, approaching this and actually changing the culture through criminal law. It's kind of like a game of whack-a-mole. Each individual person you can try and go after. But a focus that I feel really passionate about is on the sites that are allowing this practice to grow and grow and grow. And it's actually becoming like a commercial venture now.

So there are sites like the biggest deepfake porn website is getting 14 million hits a month. People are making money. I actually heard reporting that people were on the forums because not only does this allow you to like share deepfake pornography there are also forums where you can commission it of your ex of your girlfriend of you know whoever and also like on those forums people try and train the next generation of users and give tips and tricks about how you might be able to make better deepfakes people are hiring full-time assistants so this whole world which has become like a quasi-accepted and normalized phenomenon, to the point where out of those 14 million users, I bet there are many that don't even necessarily realize what they're

doing is problematic. They think that they're watching porn, but actually what they're watching is abuse. Just because you mentioned 4chan, we should say we asked the website 4chan for a statement, but no one got back to us. And you talked about the UK and a spokesperson for the government here said, We are cracking down on abusers who share or manipulate intimate photos in order to threaten or humiliate women and girls. This includes giving police and prosecutors the powers that they need to bring these cowards who share these photos to justice. Through the Online Safety Act, which I mentioned, we have made sharing intimate images of another person without consent a criminal offence for the first time. That includes deepfakes.

The Act has also placed groundbreaking new duties on social media platforms to stop illegal content being shared on their sites, or they risk facing fines that could reach billions of pounds. And also, with regard to Pornhub, this has come from the Pornhub Trust and Safety Centre on their website its website consent as a rule and value is paramount to the security of our users and integrity of our platforms to help protect the integrity of the platform we also prohibit content including fictional simulated or animated that features or

depicts any deepfakes whatsoever. As a content-sharing platform, Pornhub relies on technology, our team of human moderators and our wider community of users to help identify violating content. We also actively cooperate with law enforcement investigations and promptly respond to valid legal requests received in order to assist in combating the dissemination of non-consensual

recordings and distribution on the Pornhub platform. And it goes on to say they do remove and review infringing content and fingerprint the content in question to help block future uploads of it and suspend or permanently terminate the associated uploader's account where appropriate. It's a lot of detail there, but it's important to try to get out. Just let me give you a chance to respond to that, Sophie, as someone who's spent two years looking at this. Yeah, I think that we're letting tech companies mark their own homework.

I mean, Pornhub does seem to have slightly smartened up its act with regard to this. But the reality is that most of this content, in fact, 94% of this content, is being shared on sites dedicated to this abuse. Director Sophie Compton there speaking to Emma. Her documentary Another Body is now showing at select UK cinemas and will be available on BBC Storyville and iPlayer early next year.

Now, pregnancy complications can be picked up on routine ultrasound scans, but sonographers are not routinely trained in how to deliver that news. The issue was considered by the government's Independent Pregnancy Loss Review, published in July, which recommended that guidance on how to give unexpected news be incorporated into all sonography training. Emma spoke to Karen, a Yorkshire mum who received unexpected news about the health of her baby during a scan,

and Dr Judith Johnson, a clinical psychologist at the University of Leeds and the lead researcher on a project designed to strengthen training and guidance for pregnancy sonographers. Judith began by telling Emma how sonographers are currently trained. In the UK, most of our sonographers are still trained in a year-long course. So they start out as mostly radiographers or sometimes as nurses and midwives, and they get a year's top-up training. And they have to learn everything about ultrasound in that year. It's really jam-packed. And I work with the sonographer ultrasound program leader at Leeds, and she's desperate to incorporate more of this in there. But there isn't very much time

for it. And up until recently recently there wasn't even guidelines on what should be trained and there's very little support around that it's not standardized or mandatory Karen let me bring you in at this point good morning hello what happened with you um at my 20-week scan um the sonographer um scanned me and found something that she didn't recognise, that she wasn't sure what it was. So she then went to go and get someone else who came into the room and also realised it was something that they'd never seen before. There wasn't that much they could tell me at that point in time because they needed to refer me on to specialists because it was, as I said, it was something they'd not seen before. So there wasn't much they could say to me. They did try to give me some reassurance.

I do remember that kindness of me kind of saying what on earth's going to happen next and and the sonographer trying to give me some reassurance albeit that she had no idea really what was happening I then went to see specialists because of the nature of what they'd seen the the second scan that I had that was with a specialist who was unable to have a bit more of an idea of what might be going on but again it was something that they hadn't seen before so they couldn't give me much of an indication of what it was um they then went away and did some um kind of more research to see what they could find out um and I then had another um another scan another appointment well it was still in a position where they didn't know what it was, that it was something they hadn't seen before. But then they started to give me messages about what that might

mean, which is where the kind of the issue started to come in, in the experience, because they started to talk to me about sort of dire consequences that might be the case, but they didn't really know what they were looking at. So the couple of things that I think you spoke at the start as well about things sticking in your mind and words you can't unsay words once they've been said and those words sticking so I have was told lots and lots and lots of information but the things that stuck with me were that they thought my baby wasn't going to survive after the birth if he did survive he might not survive for very long and that the the medics would have to be there at the birth and take my baby away immediately after birth in order to to try and help him but that that my baby was going to be taken away from me as soon

as he was born we should say your baby was was born uh yeah and there was there were some complications but it again wasn't how was predicted yeah so as the pregnancy progressed um the prognosis started to get better although they still didn't know but the prognosis started to get better, although they still didn't know, but the prognosis started to get better. When he was born, there were a few complications. He was in neonatal for a brief spell, nothing to do with the thing they'd found during pregnancy. But yeah, he's fine. He's at school today. He's a healthy child now.

Well, that's wonderful to hear. It would be remiss of me not to point that out. And people always want to know, if you've been kind enough to come on the radio, what happened next and how that played out. But staying with that moment, because you still had a whole pregnancy to traverse, Dr. Judith Johnson, listening to that, what could have been different, do you think, in Karen's situation? Karen's situation, I guess, is a bit unusual in the sense that it involved lots of scans. But I think what really comes through strongly for me from listening to this is that it sounds like the sonographers, especially the first one, they just didn't know how to communicate uncertain news with you. They'd found something, they weren't sure exactly what, they thought it might be concerning, but no one knew how to communicate that. And what

that meant was that there was delays, there was uncertainty, there was an unclear picture being presented. And that left, I think, Karen, with just a lot of distress, which could have been, I think, more carefully, more empathically managed had people had more confidence. What are you saying to those doing this about the best way to deliver the news? Can you give us some practical tips? Yes, so we do have a 12-point framework, which I won't run through, don't worry, but there is a few things in there. So we encourage sonographers to use neutral language throughout, so we don't actually talk about bad news in pregnancy, we talk about unexpected news, because of course it can include a range of possible physical conditions, and we don't want to, I suppose, make a value judgment around that. So we talk about unexpected news, we don't use the words normal or abnormal, we discourage those and we encourage instead expected and unexpected. For example, we don't use disorder either. We encourage sonographers to use the term condition. So we

use that neutral language. We also encourage honesty. So actually, even quite recently, I've given talks and had sonographers come up to me and say, I was told not to be honest. If I'm not sure, if I think it might be a miscarriage, but I don't know yet, I've been encouraged just not to say anything. And we say no, because parents pick up on cues. They suspect that you might've found something and they prefer honesty. So even if you're uncertain, it's best just to be honest about that uncertainty. And then possibly one of the most important things that I coach sonographers to do is about naming emotions and so often women who come in and receive unexpected news or there's a possibility of it and they'll be quite anxious and that will be displayed

and or for example after they've had the news they might be quite upset so we encourage sonographers just to name that to say something like I know this is an anxious time, or to say, I recognise this is really upsetting news, and I wish I had different news for you. Because that can communicate to expectant parents that the sonographer means well, that they care, that they recognise, and that can make all the difference for people when they're receiving this kind of news. Dr Judith Johnson from the University of Leeds and Karen, a mum from Yorkshire there. Still to come on the programme, actor Jodie Whittaker tells us about her new series on Paramount and how she chooses which roles to take on. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day if you can't join us live at 10am during the week.

All you need to do is subscribe to our daily podcast. And guess what? It's free. Next, Amanda Spielman is 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 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.

Ofsted's annual report came out this week and Emma spoke to Amanda Spielman right after its release. She began by asking Amanda what rating she would give her own performance. 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 10 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 sort of slightly caught in the crossfire. 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. Across the board, there's real progress and we can get very focused on the COVID hangover and lose sight of the 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. So can I just interrupt to say that for those who aren't aware of this, because this is the latest

on this, the latest on this the the average rate of persistent absence has doubled since before the pandemic 28 percent of secondary school pupils are absent at least 10 percent of the time you just let that sink in for a moment almost a third of secondary students are not attending school enough absolutely and that that is a worry so so what's broken well some of that some of that is about more more more illness and and we know that mental health problems have increased but some of it is about people so 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 how do we fix that 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 part and accept school policy, school expectations, 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. 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 about inspection. Inspection is a couple of things.

One, it is the thing that connects government policy to what happens in schools. We are looking to see whether schools are doing what they're expected to do. 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're 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'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.

And finding the ways to defuse this are really important. Are you saying headteach teachers are feeding anxiety about the assessment of schools it's hard to say quite well but it's very clear that anxiety is being ramped up and i know that it is not coming from ofsted we have done no no no one's saying we've done 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 uh particular studyed 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 send every single school a link to our post-inspection survey. So everybody who's uncomfortable has the chance to express that consistently. Two of them? Nine in ten. Two of them, yes. But would you tell an organisation that you didn't feel comfortable? You might. And this is after the inspection. It has no bearing whatever on their inspection and we do third part and we've started 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, head teachers 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. Well, it's not ghosts wandering around the education system. Who are the characters creating anxiety? Well, 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, I'm afraid, sits outside Ofsted's responsibility. What we do is exactly what other inspectorates do. So the way we inspect, the way we report, it's exactly what happens for hospitals, 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 head teacher,

Ruth Perry? Yes, I can't talk about specific. 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 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 a lot, 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. 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 or 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 do everything I can to make what we do as good and as constructive and as positive as we can make it. 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 legacy, your record. But I just wanted to read you this to get your view 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 part of Lancashire wanted me to ask you this. Quote, when faced with limited and decreasing funding

in a time of 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 is 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. Outgoing Ofsted Chief Inspector there, Amanda Spielman. Now, Jodie Whittaker is someone many of you will know as the 13th Doctor in Doctor Who and the first woman to play the role. Just this week marked the 60th anniversary of that iconic show.

And ever since she finished that role, Jodie has been attracted to gritty stories of women's lives, including her newest one in an Australian drama called One Night, which centres around three women. The central theme being the rape of Jodie's character, Tess, 20 years previously when she was a teenager. But when she spoke to Emma, she began by giving her thoughts on the Doctor Who anniversary. 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?

No, 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 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 break you need a bit of time on the breakup I think the fans have earned a break now I'm 13 there is a very cool fact though to raise about this about you being a woman and I know you've obviously been asked, 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. Can we talk about this? You can. Well, it's the first method moment. I was very early, early pregnant. No one knew. And I had this very intense moment where I did think, oh, gosh, 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. 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, yeah, yeah. You were newly pregnant. So it's 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. 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 a quote written down is 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 limit 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. And I think that that's a very unique character to play, somebody that can be so mercurial. Did you feel qualified in the end as a woman? 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 started doing Doctor Who, 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 realised

that actually you know you do if you're playing particularly someone like Beth Latimer in Broadchurch you know that's a five month season that we shoot for. 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 is, 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. We went to Sydney for four and a half, five months. And it was the most extraordinary thing. But that is because I opened the 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. 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 would say if regular listeners to this programme just know I probably don't say anything. Yeah, OK, great. OK, 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, you know, and that 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 internalization of what one horrific event can do to not just one person, but to the friendship, to the community, all those things. But you seeing it differently every time. 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. The power of keeping this event current throughout with the use of flashback and that way of storytelling felt really unique. 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 uh the iplayer actually had the writer in the other day uh talking about this um and it's a depiction of prison and women's lives in the female estate you play all uh um and you're you're serving your sentence you've got children and it shows a very uh 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 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 yes was about men and 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 the ability to 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 sing single mum criminal drug addict you know woman suffering from mental health issues no no no delving in you know just you get these headlines of people and and and then actually when you explore it the question of particularly in all his of view, the crime meets the punishment, 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 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 um I think it's 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 you know 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 definitely a rule that you've got to live by. Actor, Yorkshire legend, Jodie Whittaker. That's all from me on Weekend Woman's Hour, but do join us again on Monday. We'll be speaking to multi-award winning actor, Dame Harriet Walter, about her latest stage role at the National Theatre in London.

Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I love you. I know that. Carolyn is 80, a wealthy widow. Dave is in his 50s, homeless, a former drug addict with a long criminal record. Their love affair causes a huge rift in Carolyn's family. That's our mom. We're not going to let you just do that. I'm Sue Mitchell and this story unfolded in California

on the street where I live. Look what you brought into your house. He's a con artist, mother. Is Dave a dangerous interloper or the tender carer he claims to be? That's why I'm here. Thank the Lord. Find out in Intrigue, Million Dollar Lover from BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds. If anything happens to him, I will just die.

I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig,

the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.