Nikki Collingwood

Educational Psychologist & Associate Lecturer

Dr Nikki Collingwood is an Associate Lecturer, teaching on the Year 1 Child Development Assessment and Intervention (CHAI) module, as well as teaching and supervising on the Research Module across all years of the Doctorate course.

Nikki undertook a Business Science degree at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa and moved from her home country of Zimbabwe to the UK in 1995. She initially worked as a Management Consultant in the area of Organisational Change and Design for 9 years, before training to become a teacher in 2002. She worked in primary schools as a classroom teacher before taking on roles of Specialist Teacher and SENCO working with children with learning difficulties. In 2012 , she completed her Master’s in Psychology, with her research focussing on social-emotional aspects of Autistic children, using a Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) approach to explore their views and perspectives. Nikki completed the Doctorate in Educational Psychology at University College London (UCL) in 2016, with her thesis examining the impact of an intervention to address maths anxiety.

Following qualification, Nikki worked as an Educational Psychologist (EP) in a local authority in Southeast of England for 5 years. During that time, she maintained her interest in interventions to address social-emotional wellbeing for children and young people (CYP), as well as developing training for educational professionals in the areas of Executive Functions, Metacognition and Self-Regulation. Between 2018 to 2021, Nikki was also a Trustee of Connections in Mind Foundation, whose mission was to improve educational and well-being outcomes for CYP from challenging socio-economic backgrounds.

Nikki joined the Educational Psychology Doctorate team at University of East Anglia (UEA) as an Academic Tutor/Lecturer in 2020. She delivered seminars across all years and provided supervision for Trainee Educational Psychologists (TEPs) on personal, practice and academic development. She also provided Research Supervision across all years and was involved in the examination of viva’s in both an internal and external capacity.

In 2021, Nikki undertook specialist training in Clinical Paediatric Neuropsychology at UCL. She subsequently worked as a Practitioner Psychologist (Neuropsychology) within the Evelina Clinic, Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospital. This involved undertaking consultation and neuropsychological assessment for children and young people with brain injuries, as well as support to multidisciplinary teams. Since 2022, Nikki also works as an Associate Educational psychologist for Recolo UK Ltd, providing rehabilitation assessment and intervention for children and young people with brain injuries, as well as support to multidisciplinary teams.

Nikki joined the Tavistock Child, Community and Educational Psychology (M4) team in 2023. She has a range of research interests, in particular, Neuroeducation and interventions to address social-emotional wellbeing.