Woman's Hour - Listener Week: Functional Skills in Schools, How to Make a Podcast, Blushing, Being single

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

In two weeks’ time, thousands of young people will open their GCSE results — but what about those who don’t get the grade 4 they need in Maths and English? 41% of pupils in Maths and 29% in English won’t reach that benchmark, and 82% fail their resits, blocking their path to A levels, T Levels and BTECs. Listener Hannah Gee highlights a hidden alternative: Functional Skills, which have a 60–80% pass rate. We hear from Hannah and her son Joe, and from Claire Green from the Association of School and College leaders. Do you have an idea that you’ve been mulling over for a while, but you don’t know how to start? Listener Sue will be 60 this year. After building a fulfilling life and career, she wants the next chapter to be just as rewarding. Sue joins Chloe Tilley to discuss ageing, purpose and her podcast idea. They're also joined by Candace Wilson, founder of Your Podcast Producer, to talk about taking the first steps towards making a creative idea happen.For some people, blushing is more than a moment of embarrassment - it can become a debilitating form of social anxiety. Chloe hears from two women about how it's affected their lives and ask clinical psychologist Professor Emma Warnock-Parkes from the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma at the University of Oxford why it happens and what helps.Are single women treated differently to single men? Woman’s Hour listener Ellie says that people always act as though she has no agency as a single 25 year old woman, whereas she feels that single men are the ones calling the shots in their lives. Ellie asks: ‘Why is it so inconceivable that I'm choosing to be single?’ Chloe is joined by Ellie and author and content creator Milly Goldsmith, who received thousands of comments from women admitting they'd never had a boyfriend, after she posted a viral TikTok describing herself as ‘chronically single’.Presented by Chloe Tilley Producer: Louise Corley

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odo brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's ODbolo.com. Hello, this is Chloe Tilly and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to the program. It is our penultimate program for listeners week

where you decide all of the issues we discuss and you have chosen some great issues today. The mother who reached out after her son repeatedly resat his GCSE English and maths exams to try and get a grade four. That is the minimum required to continue in post-16 education. She asks why, after a demoralising journey, more young people aren't offered the functional skills test.

Not heard of it? Well, many people haven't and she says that is exactly the problem. We'll also be discussing whether single women are treated differently to single men. After one of our listeners says people find it inconceivable that she's choosing to be single in her 20s. Plus, blushing, a moment of embarrassment in public or a paralysing anxiety that stops you living your life. We're going to look at the science behind it and the impact it's had on one listener. And we're interested to hear from you today, your experiences of blushing. Have you been embarrassed by it or do you own it? Is there a moment that stays with you even now, maybe years later, when you blushed,

and it still makes you cringe? You can text us 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. Tell us the impact blushing has had on your life. Is it actually debilitating? Send us a WhatsApp, 0-3700-100-444. And of course, you can get in touch with us on any of the stories that you have asked us to talk about today, including have you got an idea for a podcast

And if so, how on earth do you get it off the ground? Well, that's the question posed by soon-to-be 60-year-old listener Sue, who wants to get different generations talking. We're going to try and get her some advice before the end of the program. Now, in just two weeks' time, young people across England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be getting their GCSE results. And while we celebrate those who excel, what about those young people who don't manage to get a grade four pass in their GCSE maths and English?

Just over a third of pupils, that's around 41% in maths, maths and 29% in English will not get the required grade four pass and some 80% will fail a reset. Now you need to pass both maths and English to then go on to any post-16 study whether that is A levels, T levels or B-Tech Level 3 qualifications. Well, listener Hannah G, she emailed at the programme to say, please let me come on and talk about how one in three children in England fail English and maths GCSE. And they're expected to reset, repeat and try again, until. they pass. She adds that did you know that a solution exists, but it's hidden. Functional skills tests have a higher pass rate around 60 to 80% compared to resets, resets, which only have 17 to 21% pass rate. Well, in a moment, we're going to hear from Claire Green, who is the post-16 and

skills policy specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders. Claire, thank you so much for being with us. But first, let's speak to to Hannah, who emailed us, who's here in the studio with her son Joe. Thank you both for coming in. Hannah, first of all, I know Joe is the inspiration behind this whole campaign that you have to make parents more aware of these functional skills tests. But before we talk about what they are and how they differ, take us back to when Joe was first sitting as GCSEs. And Joe, I will let you come in as well. It's always weird when we talk about someone who's sitting opposite me. But from a parent's perspective, what was it like going into that? Did you think that Joe would be able to get that grade four?

was diagnosed as dyslexic age nine and so he struggled with school but he had consistently high effort grades. He also had a private tutor in the run up to GCSEs and in his mocks he was getting threes and the occasional four so I was really quite optimistic that a child with you know excellent school reports who tried hard would get the grade that they needed to move on in life so yeah I was quite optimistic when he sat them and often when they get their they do their mocks they often their grades do go up, don't they? Because they're working really hard. Yeah.

Things like that. So did you know what your options were when Joe wasn't able to get those grades initially? I knew that he would be able to reset. And the first thing I did was look at the reset pass rate. And I was amazed at how low it was. And then I thought, well, how many children actually passed GCSEs in the first place? And I couldn't believe that in all my time in education, being heavily involved with schools, I didn't know that one in three would pass.

And what really blew my mind was that only three in ten special educational needs children pass their English and Mass compared to seven in ten non-special educational needs, which points to the problem being it's a system problem, not a child problem. Joe, how were you feeling all through this? What, what effect was it having on you? What? The first time that I failed. Yeah. Failed. I always think failed is a really difficult.

But that's okay. You got a three, okay? You didn't fail. You got a three. So how did you feel then knowing that resets were what was coming? I mean, I think I was quite optimistic for the first, like, one or two times for the reset. But then after it got to the third time, fourth time, I was sort of feeling a little bit like demoralised. Like, yeah, I wasn't really feeling very confident because obviously if you do something once, you don't pass it.

And then you do it again, you don't pass it. Obviously, your self-esteem and stuff is going to go down. And what support were you getting? in between? We're getting extra hours of maths and English tuition? Yeah, yeah. I was getting extra hours of tuition, but I still don't think it was really enough. And so you're in this cycle, essentially, aren't you? The two of you, and the family as well.

Joe's already said he's feeling quite demoralised. As a parent, I can imagine, it's quite difficult for you. It's incredibly difficult because you're trying to motivate a child who believes they can't do it because they're being told by the system they can't. So when Joe came home and said, Mum, there's this thing called functional skills. I was like, oh, what's that? And he said it's a GCSE equivalent.

And I thought, again, I've been involved with the school. No, how has no one ever told me this? And so I looked into it and discovered that the pass rate for functional skills, which are a GCSE equivalent according to the government and according to Ofquil, and they're regulated by Ofquil, 55% of children pass maths and 63% pass English, which is very different to the recent.

it pass rate, extremely different. And the reason being it's a more applied format. Well, it's going to also explain to us what's the difference between, say, a GCSE maths question and a functional skills test maths question. GCSE maths can be very abstract. So it include things like simultaneous, quadratic equations, Pythagoras theorem, etc. So it can be very abstract. Functional skills is focused on applied maths. So ratios, percentages, fractions, things that we need every day of our lives. Do you think this is having a long-term impact on you now, Jay? I mean, I don't think so. Not anymore, but in the time that I was doing my maths and English,

like, regularly every time that I could, every time that there was a reset, like, paper available, I think, yeah, it was demoralising at the time, but I don't think once I passed it, it wasn't as bad, because obviously, like, yeah. It's not affected your confidence now? No, I don't think so. That's good.

I wonder as well, why do you think, Hannah, people aren't being told about functional skills, like parents who are in your situation? Why is it not regularly being offered by schools or colleges or six forms? Schools hands are tied because of league tables and funding restrictions. It's out of school's hands, really, because of the government legislation around those things. It's quite complicated, which is why I started the fair exam's campaign. So we've got our petition live. ideally what we're asking for is for the government to integrate functional skills into GCSE up to a grade four so that more children pass because resists cost us £338 million a year.

So if we have more children passing the first time, they would leave more confident, they'd have higher self-esteem, they could move on to level three courses and become much more employable. Let's bring in Claire Green, who's sitting here listening to our conversation, who is post-16 and Skills Policy Specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders. I know, Claire, you've been a teacher, you've been head of sick form for more than 20 years, and of course also your role at the Association of School and College Leaders.

When young people don't manage to get that grade four pass in English and maths, I know that you've called it the forgotten third, what do we know about these young people? Are there patterns as who they are? Could these be people that are recognised earlier in the system? and identified and supported. Yeah, absolutely. So the forgotten third term itself

comes from a report that we commissioned in 2018, which was to look into, you know, why do we have a situation where a third of young people every year fail to meet this government-imposed benchmark of a grade four in their English and maths. And what we see within that third of young people and it is always roughly a third of young people

every year who don't meet the benchmark, we see more young people with special education, needs and disabilities in that cohort. And we also see more disadvantaged young people within that cohort. And as you said, I was a head of sick form for a long time. And so I've personally supported students who are in that position and having to then do this, we call it the treadmill of GCSE resets. And they are, as Joe has explained, it's really demoralising for both the students and the family supporting.

But it's also really hard for education staff who are supporting the students. as well because often, you know, the young people are so, they feel like failures. I know, Joe said, I failed, you know, you didn't fail, but young people feel like they are failures in this situation. And that's a third of young people feeling like they're a failure every year. And their schools are having to say, no, you need to go to this retake lesson. And it's the last thing that they want to do, you know, on their timetable. So I've been in the position where I've escorted students to those lessons.

They don't want to go. Or when it's the exam, they might not turn up for the exam. You have to go and collect them to try and get them into the exam hall because there's such a barrier created by this benchmark that's imposed. So, yeah, you know, the forgotten third, they seem to be forgotten because like you said at the start, most people are not even aware that this happens every year and it does. I mean, there's a cost clearly to young people and their families, as we heard from Hannah and Go. But there's a cost to the government here.

It costs millions and millions of pounds every year to go through the resets cycle. So is there a better way? Is the functional skills test a better approach in your view? So it does cost a lot of money and that's because there are funding regulations around post-16 where now you have to actually plan for 100 hours of teaching for English and maths. And we're in a recruitment and retention crisis. It's really difficult particularly to get maths teachers. And so we're having to put on all of these additional lessons

when only then 20% of those young people go on to actually achieve the grade 4 by the end of their post-16. Do we think functional skills is a better solution? think is a better solution to what we've got right now. But the Association of School and College Leaders, and in that forgotten third report that I mentioned previously, we actually put forward an alternative suggestion, which is we agree with Hannah and Joe that there needs to be a pre-16 solution to this.

We don't see why young people have to fail before something kicks in. But our view is that the functional skills qualification now is sort of associated with that idea of not achieving the GCSE. it's sort of seen as a backup option. So what we would like to see is a new qualification, a kind of universal passport-style qualification

where there's a set of standards that we would expect young people to achieve in literacy and in numeracy by the time they leave secondary education. And once they've kind of met those standards, they've got the benchmark. So that becomes the benchmark rather than having the arbitrary grade four for everybody.

And I'd like to add to that, that exactly we're campaigning for something similar in the way that we want functional skills integrated into GCSEs because change takes so long and young people are in a neat crisis and a mental health crisis. So we are asking the government to do something they can implement immediately

because functional skills already exist. So they could quickly offer them from year 10 but on our manifesto what we're asking for them is to be integrated into GCSEs to make exams fairer, not easier. Of course, we have. heard from the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, more of a focus on technical education. Does that sound like a good approach? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely something that we welcome

at the Association of School and College Leaders. We think there should be broader options available for young people from 14 so that we've got pathways for all sorts of learners and we don't have a third of young people kind of left behind and then not able to progress potentially to the courses that they want to do. And that's kind of the situation that Joe found himself in. And I've seen that numerous times with young people that I've taught previously where because they've got to take the GCSE retake in post-16, that means it might be timetabled at the same time as another course that they want to do. And so therefore they can't choose that other course because they've got to go to the retake lessons because it's compulsory.

And the school has no say in that. The young person has no saying that. And we don't think that's right. The government's recently announced this idea of a stepping stone qualification in English and math, just explain what that is, who would take that and whether you think in your view that would work? Yeah, so currently functional skills is available for students who are retaking if they've got a grade two or lower on their GCSE. In future, what the government is saying, anybody who's got a grade two or lower, they will instead of doing functional skills, functional skills may still exist for some students, but they're saying the majority instead will do this level one stepping stone qualification. Now, if you've got a grade two or one in your GCSE, that is actually

equivalent to a level one pass technically. So at the Association of School and College leaders, we just think making young people do another level one for a year before they even get the opportunity to retake their GCSE. So they're still going to have to resit, but it's delayed. The following year. So actually, it's almost delaying the problem and exacerbating it because you know, I know it's really difficult to get students to go to retake lessons. Will you be able to get young people to go to level one less than than before they even get the opportunity to retake. Exactly that. It's utterly demotivating

when all your peers are moving on that you are then stuck in this cycle of having to resit. We need to address this issue before they reach failure. It's like having a lifeboat on a ship but hiding it under the deck. There's no point. Yeah. And the other thing I would say about

this stepping stone qualification, the reason we're really against it, apart from all the reasons we've just identified, this is the only qualification that it will exist in the English system where the premise of it is you have to fail something in order to qualify for it. And that fundamentally is a flawed principle for a qualification.

Never mind all of the other downsides that we've already identified. So we just think the stepping stone is a really a backward step actually. Joe, I know you're waiting for your GCSE English reset, aren't you, which is what in a couple of weeks. How are you feeling about that? I'm feeling pretty confident, to be fair, because what was it when it was... 50% coursework.

Yeah, it was 50% coursework, so obviously that. that's easier than 100% exam. That's in the bag already, isn't it? Yeah, that's in the bag already. So I've got a distinction in that, I think. So, yeah, I'm feeling really confident going into the results, to be fair. Brilliant. And the future, what are your plans?

Well, I'm not 100% sure yet. I'm going to travelling to Thailand in November, and I want to be a DJ. I'm going to go to America next year for a football scholarship, hopefully. Wow, lots of options there. We'll have an amazing time travelling. It sounds like you need the break after work. So well done. Thank you all so much for coming in. Really grateful to you. I spoke to Hannah there, to Joe and also to Claire Green. It's worth saying as well. We did approach the Department for Education for a statement, but as yet, we haven't heard back. Now, there's loads of ways that you can listen to us and you can contact us here. Because, of course, it's listening to week and we want to hear from you. If you want to listen via your smart speaker, just say play radio 4. And if you want to catch up with anything that you might have missed, just say, Alexa, ask BBC sounds.

to rewind to the time you want, as simple as that. We have been inspired by so many of your stories this week. And so many of you still getting in touch with us, we're going to do another program tomorrow. So keep those ideas coming. If there's something that you have in mind, something that you feel we must talk about, just get in touch.

You can text us 84844. You can also get in touch on social media at BBC Woman's Hour, or, of course, you can email us through our website. Now, a single women treated differently to single men. Woman's our listener, Ellie, says that people always act as though she has no agency as a single 25-year-old woman, where she feels that single men are the ones calling the shots in their life, which she says fills her with feminine rage. So, of course, we had to ask Ellie to come into the studio.

She's sitting giggling now as I introduced that. We're also joined by Content Creator, an author of Things I Told My Notes app, Millie Goldsmith, who's been called the Gen Z, Bridget Jones, after she posted a viral TikTok describing herself as chronically single. Welcome both of you to the studio. Ellie, first of all, just explain to us why you wanted us to look at this and your views on how single women are treated and are viewed. Yes, so when I wrote in, I did not think this would be picked up.

I thought it was just me. I thought I'm surprised that so many people have resonated with it. and Millie, you talk about it all the time and people have resonated with it. I felt like it needed to be talked about because I feel like the way we talk about single women and single men is so different. In what way?

I feel like when there's single men, my age, it's like... You're in your 20s. Yeah, I'm 25 and it's like he can't be tied down. It's so cool and he's so much agency. And as a woman, I feel like when I talk about being single, I get comments like, don't worry you'll find someone or like it's something to be pitied but I don't think my mental health has ever been as good as it's been when I've been single. Before we bring me in, I'm interested

to know where do you think that judgment is coming from? Is that coming from family? Is it coming from peers? Is there a difference in perception from ages? Yeah, it's just coming from my cohort and I think pressure I put on myself as well or what I see in the media. I don't get it from family. I just don't get it from older people who are 30 plus. My colleagues are like, no, no, no, just stay single, you know, enjoy. You're so young. Whereas in my cohort, we don't feel like that. It's like there's pressure.

Time to settle down, you know, people in relationships thinking about getting married. I don't think we need a man to get onto that next stage either. But that's another thing. Millie, you're nodding. You've always been single. Yeah. Do you feel that you are judged? Yeah, I feel a lot of the time whenever,

because I've been single my whole life, I've never had a boyfriend, so I do think that's quite extreme on the other end. But I think when people hear that, they really are quite surprised because they wonder, how have I got so far in life and not found a man or a partner that's interested in me?

And I think that has also put on a lot of pressure on myself because I then question my worth than like, you know, maybe I'm not wanted. Like, why all my other friends getting all these boyfriends and I'm not? Like, what is it about me? So I always put the pressure on myself and blame myself. So do you think it's choice or circumstance?

For me, I mean, I think it's a bit of both. I think a lot of it is down to the guys I choose and not of avoidance. But I also definitely think there is something that I'm doing that is either pushing guys away or, I mean, I've been very insecure. are in my early 20s and teens. And I always, I've realized now that if I didn't love myself,

then how could I ever expect anyone else to love me? So there was a lot of that that I went through therapy and realizing that, you know, confidence doesn't have to come from a man in order to be confident. Like, I feel like I've had to, I feel like I've had to outsource this love and this worth and value to men. And after a lot of time and a lot of therapy, I've realised that the only way I can get this confidence

and this self-love is just to look inwards and to find that in myself. And that has come with a lot of struggles, but I'm 28 and I'm finally realising that. And I think, yeah, a lot of people see it as a fault being single in your 20s. Just for a woman? Just for a woman.

But with men, I think they're seen as a choice, to be honest. And do you think women are making that judgment as well as men? Yeah, I do in a way. I think from my experience, I have centered my whole life around men, which is quite hard to admit. But I really have done a lot of things to please a guy. And so if I'm not getting a relationship, then it means I'm not pleasing a guy.

And so that would make, that must be a reflection of me. And I think a lot of girls do resonate with that as well in a way. Do you also get comments about, you know, there'll be no men left? The good ones will be gone. Yeah. I think when I've said, oh, actually, I'm going to wait a bit. I'm going to take a few years on my own.

I've got comments like, oh, all the good ones will be gone by then. Or I have friends who are just not interested in dating at all. It's not in their periphery. Men are not in their periphery. And I feel like the room goes silent when they're like, oh, yeah, I'm not really interested in dating. People don't really know what to say because we're not used to women not having men in their periphery. Do you ever feel, by being single,

that you are excluded from things, whether that is intentionally or otherwise? Is it a sense of almost society's set up for couples? I mean, in my age group, I'm obviously a lot older than you, you'd be invited over for dinner. Would you feel that you wouldn't be invited over for dinner? Because that's a coupley thing. I mean, you and your 20s won't do that.

I appreciate that. But do you know what I mean? Does it feel like you're excluded or not? I think, yeah, I have all my friends from relationships, really, and I've rarely had single friends. So, I mean, naturally, a lot of people will do couple of things with their other friends who are in couples. And I find that I am great at third wheeling now. But I don't think it's, like, I've never felt unwelcome in those situations.

I've always felt very welcomed. And my friends have always been, you know, very, like, supportive of me being single. And they do want me to find a man or a relationship. But they've, yeah, they've never judged in that way, to be honest. I feel like I don't feel excluded, but that might be a slight age difference, possibly. But also I feel like we were talking earlier about how when I'm with my friends who are not really looking for a man, I just feel like the most normal person in the world. Whereas when you're around a lot of people in relationships, you kind of start putting that pressure on yourself. I wouldn't say I'd been excluded.

What about like on your weekends? Because I feel like a lot of my weekends are spent by myself because all my friends are in relationships and they're doing. Yeah, it's hard when you want to hang out, but all your friends are with their boyfriends because that's when they get to see them at the weekend, of course. But I do really love being on my own. See, that's the thing. I think being single should be so celebrated

because there is so much power in just doing what you want to do in your life. Like, I do think the default in life is to spend it by yourself and do what you want to do. And I've never, I mean, obviously, because I've never had the experience, but I've never felt the drive to half my life and share it with someone else, share everything when it comes to food, bills or time or anything. I think it's such a power to really like own your space in your life and do what you want to do. And you can feel so alone in a relationship as well.

That's not going to always make you feel less alone. So if you can feel that yourself first, that's so powerful. And that's why I don't want to give in to that. pressure, I think falling love is a really beautiful thing and I think you should not try and do it before you're ready. This message has just come in which I thought you'd be interested in. It says, I'm in my 40s, having been married 11 years and now happily single. At my age, now postmenopausal, where I'm extremely happy to be single. I feel like I can choose I want to get into a relationship whereas when I was younger, I felt societal pressure to have a partner. I don't like that society makes you feel you can only be happy if you're in a relationship. Millie, I was reading an interview that you did where you talked about how there was a family Christmas where siblings were off with partners and it was you and your mum and dad. And conversations kind of quite humbling. Well, but it's interesting, isn't it?

And you said that your dad had suggested you freeze your eggs. Yeah. He said it in a very innocent way. And we've had a conversation about it and he did say he didn't mean it to offend me in any way. but it definitely did throw me off for sure because I think I do feel like I'm still very young and having that comment has either given me a big reality check that I needed or it's definitely made me push away and realize like actually no I still want to be young

I don't want to think about kids like I'm nowhere near thinking about kids yet I've still got so much life in me and so much more that I want to do before settling down so there is definitely pressure from family members and from the older generation, which is actually quite interesting because you said that, Ellie, that there wasn't. No. I find really interesting. Because any time I go to family gatherings or parties,

the first or second question is always, how's your love? That's so interesting. I really feel that what you said about the Freezeries comment, I have a friend who is a touring musician, and already at 25, she started thinking about, can I do this and have a family? And I don't think that's the thought

that men have because she talked about it with her bandmates who are all men and they said no of course you can keep touring and have kids I know loads of people who've done it and who were all men probably so she asked how many how many were women they were like oh none of them and they hadn't even clocked that they hadn't really realized that so do you think the societal expectations and whether that is from peers or family or whatever is always coming from a concern that they're thinking if you want to have a family, there is a time period for women, whereas for men, there isn't. Yeah, you are worried about there is a window or getting left behind that I don't think men

are pressured as much about. What do you think? Yeah, I do also think that any, so any of these comments are just really a reflection of what they wouldn't do if they were our age because they didn't do it. And actually I think if they had lived in this generation now, they probably would think, actually, you know, I do have a lot of life. I do, like, the timelines change and they're all very, like, dependent on the generations. And one generation will reflect their timelines on the other generations.

And it's so different. I don't think there is any comparison at all with it. So, yeah, yeah. I feel like people are always rushing to get to the next step. And people who, it's different in my life. People who are older are always saying, stay single. be young, be free, because maybe they didn't do that when they were younger and they were thinking, no, you should do that.

Well, it's interesting you should say that because this message has just come in. Listening to these lovely young women, and yes, as a woman now 57, very happily single for six years, if I had my time again, I would have stayed single, all of my 20s and possibly my 30s. Having a boyfriend, finding a man is not the be-all and end all of life. Being happy with yourself alone will always be with you, self-resilience and a little love heart. As you look ahead, I mean, you've both said you'd like to have a relationship at a point when it is right for you. What would you say to people who are listening to this, who maybe are worried about being left behind if they're younger or indeed if they're older being left out? What would you say to them?

I think there's always, obviously, that part of where you feel left out, but find other single friends. Like find other people who are in the same time. mine as you in your life. Because it's so easy to compare your life against someone else's and they're so different. And you'll instantly think that you're doing something wrong. But who's to say that? You know, who is to say someone's doing something wrong and the other person isn't? We're all doing everything right in our own way. And I think you have to find a good group of people who are aligned with that. Really good to speak to both of you today. Thank you so much for coming in. Ellie, woman's our listener, who suggested we talked about this and also

Millie Godsmith as well. Thank you so much for coming in. Thanks for all of your messages as well coming in. We were talking a little bit earlier on about the functional skills test. This message has come in saying my husband used to teach functional skills in the 2000s at college to students doing bricklaying, plastering, etc. He used to teach them how to use maths in their work by doing practical activities. He had a very high pass rate because the students could see why they needed the maths. For example, how many bricks were needed in a certain area. Then functional skills were stopped and they were made to do GCSE maths on a strict timetable. He said the pass rate then was very low.

Keep your thoughts coming. Thank you for your messages. You can get in touch on text 84844 or at BBC Woman's Hour on social media. Now, let's discuss podcasting. Do you have an idea that you have been mulling over for a while, but you don't quite know how to start? Well, listener Sue, who's going to be turning 60 this year, both excited and well thinking carefully about the future. She got in touch to tell us about her podcast idea

and then asked for advice from an expert on how to begin. So we're here to help. Sue is with us. Morning to you, Sue. Thanks for being with us. And I'd like to say as well, Candice Wilson, the founder of your podcast producer, a podcast consultancy and production company is also with us.

Morning to you. Good morning. So Sue, first of all, I understand you joked with a friend that turning 60 is like entering a third. trimester of life. Is that what's prompting you to think about podcasting and your idea?

It was kind of too prompt. The conversation with a friend was part of it. And it's actually heard she had heard about the trimester idea in that. Sue, I'm going to jump in just because your line is very, very crackly and we can't hear you clearly at the moment.

So we'll redile you. In the meantime, we'll get some 101 advice from Candice if we'll we may. If people are listening to this thinking, I've got an idea. I think it would be really good. But actually, I'm overwhelmed because I don't know where to start. What would your advice be? Okay. I would say start with the idea. And I know it sounds very simple, but it really is the simple things. So really drill down. What is the idea? Get that clarity. And if you can actually, with your idea, distill it into one or two lines. So think of it like a short line description, for example.

you'll be able to then go to other people and quite coherently explain, this is my idea, this is what it's about. So take that time. Don't overlook that planning stage when you're thinking about the idea. And then also moving on to who is the idea for? Because you really want to have a sense of who is your target audience so that you know that, okay, you are delivering what you need to deliver for that target audience. And it will vary podcast to podcast. And, you know, you might have a primary audience. And then you might have a secondary audience as well. So it's really ensuring, you know, once you drill down what the idea is, who is it for?

What do you want them to get out of the podcast? Everything flows from that. So that's my kind of first starting point when it comes to thinking about starting a podcast. Sue is back with us. So Sue, you need to have a good idea and then you need to know who you're targeting, who your audiences and what they want. Tell us about your idea and why you want to do it. Okay, so I'll come back to the trimester idea, but the idea of the podcast evolved from,

really from me listening to the BBC World Service podcast, Dear Daughter, where parents write letters to their daughters, and they reflect on their experience and share hopes and aspirations, and listening to that, enjoying that and the fact it's global, so you get to hear about different cultures and so on, and their views on that area. It got me thinking about intergenerational conversations. And I see that young children, for example,

young children in my life and people I've known, have very open conversations with older people and have no problem chatting on about anything. But then it seems to me that when they get to teenage, that that communication can dry up. And in my own experience as a parent, I and my husband have tried to model with our own children as they were younger how to have those conversations,

how to use the open questions, you know, asking people about how, where, what, why, sorts of things so that they could discover what of interest in someone's lives, what makes them pick if you like. And they're trying to model those kind of conversations and also having a reference point, for example, I collected ideas about my own parents' backgrounds, their memories, their thoughts about their childhood and their careers and so on.

And I popped those into a photo book so that my children and my parents' other grandchildren had a reference point to look at and to have a start point for questions. But it occurred to me that almost like dear daughter, maybe a podcast would be an idea to have conversations between the older generation and younger, maybe teenage, where the teenagers to ask questions and to tap into their older relative past experience. Well, Sue, the good news is Candace is nodding away. So we'll take that as a good starting point.

It sounds gorgeous. It sounds such a gorgeous idea. It really does. Because, you know, when I came across Sue's idea, but it was sent over to me, I thought, okay, there's so many different ways you could go with this. So I like the fact that actually, Sue, you're thinking about a conversation between a young adult or young child and an elder and to have that conversation there. Because the power of storytelling is just so key. And like you mentioned, it's about preserving the culture. It's preserving the history. It's preserving that storytelling element.

So you have it as a record of time. So, you know, for yourself, when you're thinking about developing this idea, you can think about, okay, what are. some of those universal themes that might be coming up that a young person might be interested in, an older person might be interested in. And then from there, you can start to think, okay, what angle do I want to take with that? And then you can actually start to think so about what is your role in that podcast as well. So will you be that, that presenter, that host, that moderator? Will you in a sense just hand over the conversation, hand over that episode to them? and then you come back at the end and you reflect on that conversation,

are you, you know, posing questions to them, those same questions that you will get your guests that answer in every single episode. So there's a bit of a common thread there throughout the episode. So those are little things that you could start thinking about when you start to mapping out this particular idea that you have. Sue, what do you want to ask? I think that was one thing is how do you structure the content, but some other aspects I've thought about it is how.

How do you engage the participants? How do you start engaging, in this case, the elderly people and the young people? How do you reach out to them and make a pool of participants? What kit do you need? How do you go back broadcasting? There's so many questions. So many questions. I love it.

I love it. But that's the kind of, and you know, I did actually look into whether there doesn't seem to be something in this format in the UK. I think there is in America and Canada. But it's really a wide pool of questions. Yeah. So there's a couple of podcasts that are out there when I was looking online. There's a podcast called Excuse My Grandma, I believe it's called, where granddaughter does speak in conversation with her grandma

and there's things out there. But do you know, the great thing about podcasts is that even if there are same ideas out there, you're approaching it with your own unique take. So I would say, Sue, think about it in three stages. So first stage is that planning stage. So yeah, you're mapping out the idea. And you mentioned Kit as well.

So that's the second stage. So you're thinking about how you're going to record it. And then, of course, that third stage where you're thinking, okay, how do I share it? How do I get it out there in the world? So when you're thinking about that planning stage and gosh, where do these guests live? Where do they exist? I'll be honest, actually. For producers like myself, we go to where they are.

You know, we go to the Facebook groups. We put a post out on X, you know, we'll go to community groups, we'll ask around to be like, I'm thinking of developing this idea. Do you know anyone that might want to tell their story? You know, just those tried and trusted routines and roots that you can tap into those communities. So, yeah, I will put my hands up. I've lurked in many a Facebook group and try to find guests for particular subjects matters. But then, of course, when you move on to that next stage, when you're thinking about the kit, think about where just meet yourself where you're actually at in terms of the kit and your budget

and your capacity and your capabilities. So there's kit out there that you can just buy a 30 pound USB microphone. You can stick it in your laptop, ready to go and, you know, connect with your guest on Zoom or you can connect with them on software like Riverside or Streamyard, etc. And that means that you can connect with your guests wherever they are in the world. But then, of course, within that stage of recording, you have to think about, okay, how are you going to edit it? So I don't know, Sue, you know, you're in this new stage of your life. Are you thinking about you want to learn some new skills of editing, of, you know, just tweaking your audio?

Because if you're not, that's fine. You can give it to somebody to do the job for you. But, you know, that's something that you might want to consider as well. Is that something that you're thinking about to see new skills that you want to pick up in this third trimester of your life? Definitely. I think, you know, talking with this friend about the trimester idea is that in the first stage of your life, you have your academic path that you're following. Then you have in the second trimester, your career and your parenthood if you go down that way. And all of those, you're learning all the time, you're learning new skills.

And we discuss how turning 60, what we don't want it to be is a slowing down and, you know, just plotting along. aspect. So definitely learning new skills, you know, things like I've been dabbling with learning a new language over the last few years. And making those new connections, brain connections, I think, you know, we're told it's helpful to help with your ageing and help with memory and so on. So, yeah, definitely I'd love to learn new skills and just have something positive. And I have an experience where, you know, if you've got something to say, you can be heard, you can be seen. Those sorts of things, again, I think I can't be the only one who's got ideas that a podcast might be applicable to. So that's why I kind of thought these questions would be useful for all sorts of bliss.

So Sue, this isn't the idea that you're hoping this is going to make you loads of money? Because that is one challenge, isn't it, in the podcast space, Candice? It is a really busy space. And if you look at the podcast top 10 or beyond, it's often younger men that are dominating that space, how difficult is it to create a podcast that is going to be a business? There is things that you have to take into consideration. There is a cost there. But what I want people to understand is don't get overwhelmed or sidetracked by these big, shiny podcasts who are dominating the top 10.

And it is a very male-dominated podcast charts as well. So that's why I'm really, really keen to have more representation of women in this field. You know, you might have to start off as a starting point with self-financing. a lot of this stuff, if you can put aside a little bit of money, like I say, you can get a USB microphone for 30 pounds. You have to think about, you know, headphones, which again, you can get entry level one, so about 20, 30 pounds. And then, of course, working out who's going to do that,

the mixing and the mastering and stuff for yourself. So there might be an element of self-financing. But over time, what you can do, once you've built up that community, once you've found that tribe for your podcast, there are ways that you could finance that podcast, say, you know, Patreon, there'll be that community that want to financially support what you're doing and what you're creating for them. And eventually in time, you know, sponsorship may come. It might not come from these big brands, these big companies.

But if you, you know, are tapping into the local communities out there, the local businesses, they might want to actually invest in your podcast, you know, via you doing like an ad read on the podcast itself and talking about that particular business. and it has to of course be relevant to your podcast, of course. Or of course, you know, you might want to get that sponsorship via put in the description, you know, put in information about that business in your description as well. So there are ways to ensure your podcast can be financially viable. Sue, if a future grandchild was to listen to this interview in 20 years' time, what would you want them to know about their grandmother who had, well, their courage to start something new at 60?

That's a great question. What would I like them to know? I'd like them to know that at every stage of your life, you can give something a go. You know, be prepared to adapt. In fact, I had a niece who was turning 30 asked me when I turned 30, did I have any tip for her based on my experience? And so it gave me calls to look back and to reflect on that time.

So I realised that at various stages in my life, in response to various aspects, whether it was parenthood or moving and so on, you know, I've had a go with different things, different careers. So that, you know, there's no need to stand still. You don't have to be set in one group. If a new stage in your life, you know, there have been changes, give something else to go and be prepared to have an explore. This may or may not come to anything. but it's worth exploring it and thinking about whether it's something that would appeal to you and that you could actually explore and full sale. Sue, thank you so much for suggesting we talk about this.

And I hope that Candice has given you some really, well, you have. You've given really practical advice there. So thank you both so much for coming on. Sue, who suggested we discussed this here on Listener Week on Woman's Hour. And also Candice Wilson, the founder of your podcast producer, which is a podcast consultancy and production company. So many of your messages coming in. Thank you so much.

We've had this from Rosemary when we were talking a little bit earlier on about continual resets of GCSE English and maths to ensure that you get a grade four, which is required to continue studying beyond 16. Rosemary says, I'm 83 and I would have hoped education would have improved since I was at school. I was compelled to keep retaking French in the 1960s. Most universities required a modern language. I did manage to scrape a pass by taking an easier example. Now I'm very happily in my fourth year of French at a local adult education course. Motivation is everything. My son lives in Quebec City and I got tired of grandchildren having to translate for me.

Also, thank you so much for the messages coming in about relationships and the two women we spoke to who decided to be single in their 20s and saying it is a choice. This message says as a mum of a 29-year-old daughter, I'm so tired of people asking about her relationship status and not her achievements. She's a qualified architect who works incredibly hard and lives a full life. All others want to know is if she's dating and why she's not married. Do keep your thoughts. Your experiences coming 84844 on the text. Or you can WhatsApp us 0-3700-100-444. We want to turn now to our next listener, Claire Gregory, who's asked us to talk about facial blushing.

She got in touch to say the fear of going red in front of other people has shaped much of her. life. It's something many people dismissed, well, just as embarrassment. But for others, it can become a debilitating form of social anxiety. Claire is with us on the line from her home in France. Hi, Claire. Hello. Hi. Thanks for being with us. Also with us is Mahala Rocket, who is in Doncaster, and also experiences this problem as posted about it on social media. Hi, Mahala. Hi, Hi, okay. Good to have you with us. And here in the studio with me is Emma Warnock-Parks, who is a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma at the University of Oxford. Thanks for coming in. Claire, first of all, you've lived with blushing for decades.

Talk to us about the impact it's had on your life and if you've identified certain triggers. Well, when I was younger, I experienced severe facial blossoming on a regular basis and I felt it absolutely defined me. I couldn't speak up in class. read out loud, take the lead, give a speech, they were triggers. Even though I wanted to, as I knew I would go bright red and everyone would comment and laugh. And this went on for years. I felt very self-conscious, and it led to extreme and persistent anxiety in social and school settings. And I avoided situations where I might be shown up, and I became quite withdrawn at times, and it became stressful.

I tried things to stop it, so hide behind your hair, cover your face, doesn't work. Try to suppress it, doesn't work. avoiding speaking situation didn't work. And when I went to university, I realised that unless I made a big effort to overcome it, it would hinder me forever. And of course, at university, you are expected to contribute to seminars, tutorials. And I really wanted to be able to do that. It was a huge effort to speak up in tutorials and seminars first.

And the first time I did it, it was actually the lecturer who pointed out quite unkindly, really. He said, it's a blush job. And I just wanted to go through the floor. But gradually, I learned to overcome the blushing and try. try not to mind and try ignore the triggers and it's not been easy, but I've worked hard on myself, Billy. Mahala, you're 34. I know this is something that you still deal with now.

Can you talk us through what is going through your head in the moment that you feel you're starting to blush? Do you know it's coming or does it suddenly appear? So with me, it can just appear out of nowhere. And I think that's something that I find really hard. so it's literally just like a flick of a switch. There's no control in it. I don't always then feel in control of my body when the blushing starts.

But I think of more what of other people thinking of me than why I'm blushing. And I think it's because a lot like what Claire said, it doesn't have to be something embarrassing for me to start blushing. And I think that's why a lot of the time I think about what other people are thinking before actually why I'm a blushing. If it's something embarrassing, I'll probably hold my hands up with like, oh, that's so embarrassing. And then I feel a little bit better, but the majority of the time, it's not. And that's what I find really hard. Emma, do we know why we blush?

Well, blushing is actually a very normal part of being human. It's a completely involuntary response. And what happens to most of us, we can't help it, as the two women were describing there. Why do we blush? Evolutionary psychologists. We'll say that it's sort of developed as a sort of honest social signal, if you like. So it might be telling other people that you care about something. It might have developed and been helpful for building trust between humans.

But we can't help it. It often happens when we're feeling a bit more put on the spot sometimes like Claire described there. But it can happen out of the blue. It's not something we can control. But people vary quite a lot as to the extent to which they think about blushing. Some people don't give it a second thought. others will be really preoccupied by it to the extent you've heard from Claire and Mahala there where it develops almost into a social anxiety disorder.

And this is a really significant fear of being judged or humiliated by other people. A really common mental health problem, one of the most common actually, has a huge impact on life, starts very young, often in childhood or adolescence, and can be lifelong in the absence of treatment. But we rarely hear people talk about it on the radio and in the media for the very reasons. because it's very hard to talk about in public. Claire and Mahala, I'm interested. You both seemed to talk about the concern of how people view you when you blush.

So if people's responses altered, Claire, would that make it easier for you? It would have done in the past now. I'm not so well. But yes, in the past, I think it would have definitely done. Because I was anticipating a reaction. I was not going to notice. Some of you think notice. And then I think, but now I wouldn't mind so much.

I did anticipate it a lot. What about you, Mahala? Possibly, but I would probably still be thinking why is it seem to only be happening to me. I think if everybody blush the way that I do for no reason, I wouldn't really think anything of it, but I would probably still be thinking to myself, why is it just happening to me

when that's not an embarrassing moment? Because a lot of my close friends and my family, because they know what I'm like, they won't even point it out. It's more strangers now that I would probably hide it from. But yeah, I think I probably still have that thought in the back of my mind, to be fair. Fonella has got in touch saying I blush really easily on my face and neck. Many years ago I was being interviewed for a job. At the end of it, a male interviewer commented that I blushed very easily. And maybe in a future interview, I should consider wearing a higher cut top. It's stay with me forever and I'm now really self-conscious.

and if I'm in an interview situation I make sure my clothing covers my upper chest and my lower neck. That sort of comment wouldn't be allowed now. I got another message here from Paul saying I started blushing in school as a young teen and it made my life absolute hell. Kids can be thoroughly cruel.

My mates noticed and one in particular wound me up endlessly. I dreaded being singled out by teachers as I was always blush furiously. It bothered me so much. I left the sick form after one term and with hindsight it was probably a breakdown But there was huge stigma around such things, especially in young males in the late 60s. The problem is once I'd entered the workplace, but it's never really gone away.

And now I'm 70. Paul, thank you for sharing that with us. Claire, how do you feel that you managed to get this under control? I mean, I understand that you actually did a reading at your mother's funeral. You knew it would be very difficult, but you spoke in front of several hundred people. Well, I did, yes. when she died five years ago, I really wanted to do a reading at her funeral.

And I thought I would go read, but I let that overcome me because I still had the confidence to do it. And there were probably over 200 people at her funeral. She had a wide network, and the church was full. And I was proud of myself really for standing at the funeral reading

because it took me a lot of effort. Nobody else would have no more effort. It took me, possibly my husband. But I didn't really think about the blushing. And I think it really represented. So once my blushing completely controlled me, Now I control it and I don't mind it's going to happen. Emma, I know that you've carried out research with people living with the fear of blushing

and I understand you recorded them to show what they actually looked like. Yes, so a lot of the research we do in our clinic is about developing treatments for blushing. And the fear of blushing and social anxiety disorder and there are highly effective treatments available. Cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the recommended treatments that people can get access to. And it helps people in a number of different ways. One of the things that, one of the main problems in blushing is the meaning we attach to it. So people, as the people have described, worry an awful lot about how others would respond to a blush. We also know that people have very negative images in their own mind of how they think they look when they're blushing.

So if you give somebody a colour chart, for example, when you ask them how red do they think they look, they might pick a very dark shade like a traffic light. Actually, the shade they typically go is much lighter than the colour. that and these are some of the kind of things that we help people discover in treatment. Yeah. Mahala, you sought treatment, didn't you? Yeah, I've had that treatment. And also, the therapy, so I'd go through therapy as well and as well. And did it help? Yeah, it did. They also did that where they brought a stranger into the room with me to talk to me. So one of her colleagues, and she also videoed it and asked the

exact question like how good do you think you went and I'm in my head I'm thinking beat root and then we had to re-watch their video and I thought well do you know what I'm not even that bad at all and so it did help a lot and I would I would recommend therapy to anybody who feels comfortable doing that because you are speaking to a professional and they really do help so I would definitely recommend it listen thank you all so much for speaking to us today I'm really grateful for your time. As Emma pointed out there, it's not something that's normally discussed on the radio,

and that's what listener week is all about here on Women's Hour, giving you the opportunity to suggest things that we should talk about. So thank you so much, Claire, for suggesting that. And Mahala, thank you so much. And Emma Warnock Parks, a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma at the University of Oxford. This message says,

regarding blushing, I used to blush terribly, and being fair-skinned, it was so pronounced. A friend rather cruelly said it was being selfish, but I took it on board and, consciously stopped thinking about what I actually looked like. Eventually it worked. I now only very rarely blushed slightly, but I don't worry if it happens.

And that's Alison, who's now 72 years old. Well, listen, thank you so much for being with me today. I do hope you can join us tomorrow for the very last in our edition of Listener Week. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Do join us again next time. I'm David Dimbleby and from the History Podcast and BBC Radio 4. this is Invisible Hands, the American Century. It's the story of how, in the ashes of World War II,

Flash, Washington, the White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. America rose to become a global superpower. The United States, whatever our faults may be, is the hope of the world. And the invisible hands who made it happen. He's probably the most important person nobody ever heard of. Listen to Invisible Hands, the American Century. First on BBC Science.