Dr Angela Scollan

Biography

Dr Angela Scollan is Associate Professor of Early Childhood and a member of the Centre for Educational Research and Scholarship, Middlesex University, where she leads the special interest group 'Children and Society'.  

Angela is also a Professor at East European University in Tbilisi leading Pre-School Education and Professional Training.

As a children’s rights advocate in practice and academia, Angela has developed and delivered programmes inter/nationally for rights-based Early Childhood and Sustainable Pedagogy in Further and Higher Education.  Her numerous peer reviewed publications demonstrate Angela’s leading role as an international researcher and scholar in Children’s Rights, Reflective Professional Development, Ethical research with and for young children and Dialogic Pedagogies.  Her philosophy focuses on the ‘child first’ principle, which transpires in her numerous collaborations and publications, where children’s self-determination is approached as a resource for children, as well as for adults’ learning. 

Angela has contributed to two large scale European Projects: Erasmus+ SHARMED (https://www.sharmed.eu/uk-international/home) and Horizon 2020 CHILD-UP (https://www.child-up.eu/). Both projects worked directly to promote integration of children with migrant background and refugees in the classroom through the facilitation of their active participation and agency. 

Angela combines her research and scholarly profile with extensive practice and teaching experience in Early Childhood, working with children and their families, and then students across all academic levels up to Doctoral Studies.  Before entering academia, Angela worked with and for children as a Nursery Nurse, Pedagogue, Teacher, Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) Lead, Mentor, Foundation Degree Coordinator, and Early Years Ofsted Inspector.  Angela’s profile as pedagogue, teacher and trainer is revealed by her role in designing and delivering bespoke inter/national CPD training programmes for multi-disciplinary professionals working with and for young children. For instance, Angela  leads innovative Early Childhood training and CPD for the East European University Tbilisi in Georgia. For the same University, Angela works as the head of the Programme in Preschool Education (BA Hons). One of Angela's CPD Training Programmes (related to the EU Erasmus+  SHARMED project) was awarded the title of excellence in professional training  by the European Union. Another CPD training programme developed from the EU project Child-up was identified by the European Union as a key resource for the integration of Ukrainian Refugee Children in schools (April 2022). 

In 2022 Angela was invited to serve as a Reader for the Early Childhood Studies Benchmark Statements Review for the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and in 2024 to review NCFE and CAVA diploma and level 2 and 3 qualifications. Angela is currently a member of the UK-wide ECS Degree Network and co-chairs the Sustainability Working Group. 

Dr Angela Scollan is Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.  She qualified as Children's Rights expert at the University of Geneva in 2019. Angela is an international member of the PhD board in Human Sciences at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and visiting fellow in Children and Families at the University of Northampton.   Her activity as a reviewer includes several scientific journals, grant reviewer for the Italian government, grant reviewer for the British Academy, grant reviewer for the Froebel Trust and membership of the register of experts for UNESCO. 

Teaching

Angela has created and delivered numerous undergraduate and postgraduate modules across Further and Higher Education since 2004 in Early Childhood and Education Studies such as;

Children’s Rights and Self-determination: Theory into Practice; Child Development; Children and Families in a Social Context; Cultural Perspectives; Curriculum Studies; Ethics; Emotional Intelligence; EYFS; Forest School; Leadership and Management in Children’s Services; Literacy and Communication; Parent Partnership; Placement in Early Childhood Practice; Play; Reflective Professional Practice; Research; Systematic Review; Working with Babies and Toddlers under Three.