Resources

Introduction to COS Classroom

COS Classroom™ brings the principles of attachment science directly into early care settings, helping educators build the kinds of relationships with children that support not just learning, but security. It is professional development rooted in a simple idea: when children feel safe with their teacher, they are free to explore, engage, and grow.

Children learn within the context of relationship. Research consistently shows that secure attachment to early care providers has a significant positive effect on school readiness, behavior, and emotional development. The quality of the teacher-child relationship shapes outcomes not just in the early years, but well into the future. As Mary Ainsworth observed, attachment and exploration are interlocking systems — children venture out to learn when they trust that someone safe is nearby.

COS Classroom translates that understanding into everyday practice. Educators learn to recognize children's attachment needs, respond to behaviors that might otherwise be misread, and become the kind of Strong, Kind, and Committed presence that allows children to feel settled enough to learn.

The video below explores a question that matters deeply for everyone who works with young children in group care settings: can a carer be an attachment figure?

What COS Classroom Offers

COS Classroom is a two-part approach. It begins with the COS Classroom Foundations Course, an on-demand professional development course delivered directly to early childhood educators. Through approximately 9 to 12 hours of self-paced learning, educators develop a practical framework for understanding the relationship needs of the children in their care, shifting the focus from behavior management toward the relationships that make behavior make sense.

The second part is COS Classroom Coaching. After completing the Foundations Course, educators benefit from ongoing support from a trained COS Classroom Coach. Using the Practice-Based Coaching (PBC) model, coaches partner with educators through a cycle of focused observation, reflective conversation, and individualized Action Plans. These plans identify the specific relationship struggles between an educator and individual children that, if addressed, will most move those relationships toward security.

The coach's role is not to evaluate or correct — it is to create the conditions for genuine reflection. I wonder what it is like when a child in your classroom is hard to reach. That curiosity is where change begins. Consistency over intensity is at the heart of what coaches offer: not a single transformative event, but a steady, supported practice that builds over time.

Administrators play an essential role too. When leaders create a culture of safety where coaches feel supported in their work, and coaches extend that same empathy to educators, the relational quality cascades all the way to children. This is the Parallel Process at the heart of COS Classroom: the way we are with each other shapes the way we are with the children.

Where COS Classroom Came From

COS Classroom grew out of two decades of real work with real teachers. Beginning in 2006, the COS team served as mental health consultants for Spokane Head Start/Early Head Start in Spokane, Washington, forming a learning collaborative with eleven experienced early childhood educators. Meeting twice a month with Glen Cooper from COS International, these teachers reflected together on how attachment principles showed up in their daily work with children, and what it might look like to apply them with intention.

Watch one of those original teachers describe what shifted for her when she began seeing children's behavior through the lens of attachment needs.

In 2016, Deidre Quinlan from COS International began systematically field testing and gathering data on how COS principles translated into early care settings. Those lessons from the field informed the development of the structured approach that COS Classroom is today. Since 2020, a growing community of early childhood professionals from across the United States has continued that work, meeting monthly with Deidre Quinlan and Trasie Topple to refine the coaching protocols and tools that support educators after training. Each year, a new group of COS Classroom Coaches carries that accumulated learning forward.

The Teacher's Circle of Security was developed as part of this process, designed specifically to capture the complexity of attachment relationships in classroom settings, where one teacher holds relationships with many children at once.

Download a copy of the Teacher's Circle of Security in English, Spanish, or Danish.

In the video below, teachers share what it looks like to apply COS Classroom in practice, and what becomes possible when the focus shifts from managing behavior to understanding the relationship needs underneath it.