COS Classroom Approach

An Overview

Introduction to COSC Approach

Early childhood is a critical time for development. In early care settings, children need to develop a wide range of cognitive skills and social/emotional competencies to support their success throughout their school career and into adulthood. In other words, children learn to go to school so that later, they can go to school to learn.

The COSC Approach incorporates a vast body of research in attachment and developmental psychology. Children learn within the context of relationship, so it is not surprising that secure attachment to early care providers has a significant positive effect on children’s school readiness and learning. Attachment theory, in general, and COS, in particular, provide critical organizing principles for the development of teacher-child relationships.

Early care professionals make a commitment to a child’s education, but children benefit when there is a deep commitment to the whole child. The relationship quality with a teacher affects not only academic outcomes, but also behavioral and emotional outcomes now and into the future.

History

During the twenty-year incubation period of the COSC Approach, the COS team served as mental health consultants for Spokane Head Start/Early Head Start (HS/EHS) in Spokane, Washington, USA. In 2006, the program launched a focused effort to create a more systematic approach to enhancing relationships with the children in group care by forming a learning collaborative. Eleven highly talented HS/EHS teachers with an average of 22 years of experience in early childhood education, met twice a month with Glen Cooper from COS International, who presented COS theory to staff members as they reflected together on its application in the classroom.

Below is a video of a teacher from the first learning collaborative talking about her experience.

In 2016, Deidre Quinlan from COS International began the task of field testing and collecting data on the use of COSP program in early care. These lessons from the field informed the adaptations needed to develop and manualize from learned experiences to create the COSP Classroom Professional Learning Series. Since 2020, COSP Facilitators interested in bringing COSP to early care settings receive additional endorsement by completing the COSP Classroom Facilitator Course. Here facilitators are provided additional training in the use of COS materials and handouts specifically designed for early educators.

The Teacher's Circle was developed with teachers in mind to capture the complexity of relationships in the classroom.

Watch the video below to learn more about how teachers are applying the COSC Approach to their work in the classroom and the benefits of focusing on relationship needs of children in their care.

Since 2020 another learning collaborative of early care professionals from across the United States met monthly for more than a year with Deidre Quinlan and Trasie Topple to help field test and develop learning protocols and modules to be used in classroom coaching. Through reflective dialogue, the pragmatics of moving theory into practice is unfolding. With their new understanding of children’s attachment needs, COSC Coaches introduce classroom friendly protocols and interventions to enhance attachments between children and early care professionals. Each year, a new group of coaches are learning from the COSC Approach the knowledge developed by past collaboratives as they continue to develop the thinking and applications into the future for the COSC Approach.

Click here to download a PDF copy of the COSC Approach Overview.

A Two-Tiered Approach for Early Care Professionals

COSP Classroom Professional Learning Series &
COS Classroom Coaching

The COSC Approach is a two-tier approach to professional development for early care professionals to support secure relationships in the classroom by first equipping educators with learning opportunities and then the application in the classroom through supportive coaching. The COS Classroom Approach to professional learning supports an environment where early care professionals move from behavioral approaches to social emotional learning by seeing the ways attachment needs are communicated through children’s behavior and misbehavior and then finding caring ways to help meet those needs.

Tier 1: COSP Classroom Professional Learning Series

Tier 1: COSP Classroom Professional Learning Series equips early care professionals with learning opportunities, provides a clear model of children’s attachment needs, and highlights the importance of the teacher in responding to these needs. In other words, it makes the theory of attachment accessible. With a COSP Classroom facilitator, early care professionals complete the 8-chapter video-based series which provides a clear model of children’s attachment needs. The learning series also supports educators to look beyond behavioral approaches to seeing the ways attachment needs are communicated by behavior (and often misbehavior). The importance of the teacher as an attachment figure in responding to these needs is highlighted by reflection questions and handouts created specifically for early care professionals.

Watch the video below to hear classroom teachers share their experience of participating in Tier I - COSP Classroom Professional Learning Series.

Tier 2: COSC Coaching

Tier 2: COSC Coaching draws on everything learned in Tier 1. Classroom Coaches offer supportive coaching to early care providers to apply the learning from Tier 1 into the classroom. Building on reflective consultation, classroom coaching addresses the needs of both individual children and classroom structures and procedures.

Through regular coaching sessions, coaches support early care providers to use the Circle of Security to identify children who are struggling to develop secure connections with their teachers, clarify the specific relational pattern that is interfering with the connection, and develop a plan to respond to each child’s attachment needs. The COSC Approach follows an evidence-based coaching framework put forth by the Office of Head Start.

Training Pathways for Professionals

COSP Classroom Facilitator Course &
COS Classroom Coach Training

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Research and Emerging Evidence

Research & Emerging Evidence

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COSC in Head Start Centers

COSC in Head Start Centers

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