EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST
EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH
Julia Martin and Dr. Kathy Weston FROM THE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS EXAMINATIONS BOARD AND TOOLED UP EDUCATION
Julia Martin, CEO of the Independent Schools Examinations Board (ISEB), and Dr. Kathy Weston, the Founder of Tooled Up Education, speak to us about the new partnership between ISEB and Tooled Up: the Parent Power Toolkit, which consists of resources designed to help parents and guardians prioritise their child’s mental health and wellbeing during the academic admissions process. To start with, could you both tell us about your personal backgrounds and your journeys towards where you are currently? Julia: Thanks for having us. I’m Chief Executive
at the ISEB (Independent Schools Exam Board). I keep saying I’m new, but I’m not – I’ve been there 42 | EDUCATION CHOICES MAGAZINE | AU T U M N 2 02 3
nearly three years in January. During that time, we’ve been looking to transform the exam board (we’re 120 years old this year) and transform those paper-based common entrance exams that many of you may know or have taken, and start looking at digital examinations, project-based and skills-based qualifications, and most importantly a much more holistic way of looking at assessments. Kathy: I have a doctorate in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, and my specialism within social science was the sociology of coping, resilience and identity. I became incredibly interested in parental engagement in children’s lives and learning, wrote a couple of books with Professor Janet Goodall on how home and school can work together, then the culmination of that was Tooled Up Education, which is a digital
