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BIG INTERVIEW By Ged Henderson


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#RRA26 MATTERS OF PRINCIPAL


When Lisa O’Loughlin says people see her as a ‘change-maker’ that is something of an understatement.


As a leader in further education, with a significant national profile, Lisa continues to take on the challenge of change as she strives to make a real difference.


Her work over the last two years has included making a major contribution to a vital national review of the education curriculum, while leading one of England’s top-performing college groups through a name-change and a bold new strategy.


And while doing all that Lisa, who received a CBE in the King’s New Year Honours list, has faced and overcome breast cancer with all the grit and determination she has shown throughout her professional life.


Sitting in her office in the Nelson campus of the newly renamed East Lancashire Learning Group (ELLG), she smiles as she says:


“I’m not someone who likes to just sit and hang about. I’m not a ‘peacetime’ principal by any means. I like it when there’s a lot on, it’s what drives me.”


She has certainly packed a lot in her career so far. Brought up in Wigan, her father was a joiner who also played Rugby League for Leigh and St Helens, and she was the first of her family to go to university, studying media and business management at Manchester.


That led to an early career in media production with a corporate video company. Lisa’s introduction to teaching and the world of further education came when she was asked to cover a class at a local college. Before that teaching was not on her radar.


Enthused by the experience, she went on to get her teaching qualification from the then University of Central Lancashire. A post teaching TV production at Blackburn College,


which had its own cable channel, followed. “I had a fantastic time and loved it,” she says.


Over the next decade Lisa moved up through the management structure to become deputy principal before moving to Manchester College, becoming its principal in 2014.


Transformation and change were the two big ticket items on her desk as she took up the role. The college had 17 campuses across the city but lacked any curriculum strategy, she explains.


“Huge” changes were needed and by 2019, with its transformation strategy heading in the right direction, the college group was rated ‘good’ in every area.


Lisa also discovered the financial challenges of the system very quickly. “You have to generate enrolments every year. If you don’t, you don’t get the money. The funding follows the learner and it’s a competitive market.”


Continued on Page 28


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