Donna McNicoll

Donna has been working in Catholic education for over 30 years. She is head teacher at St Mary’s RC Primary School in Haslingden, which has been one of the top performing schools in the country for 10 consecutive years.  The school has also recently been appointed to form the Lancashire Research School in conjunction with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and are proud to be one of 32 national Research Schools across England supporting schools across the Northwest in applying evidence-informed recommendations in their approach to improving their pupils’ outcomes.

Donna has vast experience of offering support for schools in difficulty across the Diocese and Lancashire.  She was for many years (until becoming head of the Research School) a National Leader of Education  and has been active in the school- led system since 2016 and is highly committed to evidence informed practice in the context of school improvement.

As well as being Director of Romero, she sits on many boards with other strategic partners: Abacus NW Maths Hub and Lancashire Teaching School Hubs (Embrace Teaching Hub, STAR, Pennine and STAR NW Lancashire). She has seven years’ experience of being a trustee at a local hospice and has previously also worked as a CSI inspector for Salford Diocese.