What is COS Classroom?
COS Classroom is a comprehensive online professional development course that delivers directly to professionals strategies that support secure relationships in early childhood care and learning settings. By offering a new lens to educators, the focus shifts from finding ways to manage difficult behavior in search of compliance, to relationship-building that promotes well-being. Educators learn to apply Circle of Security strategies to daily classroom interactions, challenging behaviors, and transitions.
Educators complete COS Classroom for foundational understanding, then connect with trained COS Classroom Coaches for ongoing support applying concepts with specific children and classroom challenges.
Benefits for Educators
- Effective strategies to teach children emotion regulation
- Strengthen educator-student relationships
- Reduce stress and increase job satisfaction
- Skills to respond to challenging behaviors
- Recognize behavioral expressions of stress and trauma
Benefits for Children
- Promotes children's sense of belonging and connection
- Reduces stress of morning transitions
- Builds lifelong regulation skills with the help of trusted adults
- Increases confidence in learning
- Decreases challenging behaviors and increases prosocial behaviors
Those interested in training to be a COS Classroom Coach can learn more below.
How do I get started?
For Teachers and Educators:
- Enroll in COS Classroom for foundational attachment knowledge
- Engage individually or collaborate with colleagues
- Consider ongoing coaching support for implementation
For Schools and Centers:
- Decide on individual, small group, or whole staff engagement
- Plan professional development time for the 9-12 hour program
- Explore COS Classroom Coaching support for sustained implementation
Why is attachment science important for educators?
First relationships with educators provide foundational experiences that shape children's capacity for lifelong learning, emotion regulation, and social connection. These early classroom relationships become the template for how children approach learning, handle challenges, and form future connections at school.
When teachers understand attachment science, they are able to create secure classroom environments where children feel safe to both seek connection and also to explore and develop essential social-emotional competencies. Research shows children with secure educator relationships demonstrate enhanced emotional regulation, improved social skills, greater learning confidence, increased resilience, and stronger foundations for future relationships.
For young children, relationships in early care settings may be the first important relationship they have with someone outside of their home. The Circle of Security recognizes the role of an educator extends beyond instruction—they serve as attachment figures who profoundly impact a child's developmental trajectory through relationship quality.
What will I learn in COS Classroom?
The course helps educators understand how to apply attachment theory to group care settings, focusing on relationship-building strategies that support individual children's needs and classroom-wide social-emotional learning.
Core Learning Components:
(COS Classroom Workbook)
Understand Your Role as an Attachment Figure
- Recognize how educator relationships shape lifelong learning capacity
- Build security through consistent, responsive classroom relationships
Behavior Translation Skills
- Move from "What's wrong with this child?" to "What is this child communicating?"
- Understand challenging behaviors as expressions of attachment needs
Relationship-Based Teaching Strategies
- Teach children emotion regulation through adequate experiences of co-regulation
- Create environments that promote safety and belonging
Self-Reflection and "Shark Music" Awareness
- Recognize your triggers and responses to children's behaviors
- Develop strategies to stay emotionally available during challenging moments
Repairing Relationships and Building Security
- Learn "time-in" approaches rather than exclusionary discipline
- Understand individual children's "limited circles" and responsive strategies
Cultural Responsibility and Practice
- Approach problem solving with curiosity rather than judgement
- Identify the universal needs of all children on the Circle of Security as expressed in a unique way by each child
How does COS Classroom work?
COS Classroom provides 6 hours of video content plus a comprehensive workbook, totaling 9-12 hours of learning that educators complete at their own pace over 6 months. Participants receive individual login credentials and earn 1.2 IACET CEUs (12 seat hours) upon completion.
Program Details:
- Investment: $250 per individual learner
- Access Duration: 6 months from enrollment
- Total Learning Time: 9-12 hours estimated completion
- Credentials: 1.2 IACET CEUs (12 seat hours)
- Format: Self-paced online modules with progress tracking
Early care and learning professionals can engage individually during prep time, in small groups with colleagues, or as whole staff professional development while maintaining individual accounts.
What is COS Classroom Coaching?
COS Classroom Coaching is specialized training for professionals who want to support educators in implementing concepts from COS Classroom. This practice-based coaching provides the essential bridge between understanding attachment concepts and implementing them effectively in group classroom strategies and with specific relationships.
COS Classroom Coaches come from diverse backgrounds including mental health, education, and early childhood development. Effective coaches develop knowledge across early childhood education, child development, mental health, and group care dynamics.
Endorsed COS Classroom Coaches are eligible to participate in a registry to connect with early care and learning professionals seeking coaching support in COS Classroom implementation.
Classroom Coaching provides a non-judgmental space for educators to reflect on their relationship goals with children, reducing isolation and creating collegial support that addresses teacher stress and turnover, and allows for collaborative action planning to move relationships towards security.
How do COS Classroom and COS Classroom Coaching work together?
Teachers complete COS Classroom for foundational understanding, then connect with COS Classroom Coaches for ongoing support applying concepts with specific children and classroom challenges.
COS Coaches Support Teachers Through:
- Relationship-Focused Problem-Solving: Understanding what makes specific teacher-child relationships challenging
- Reflective Practice Development: Helping teachers recognize their "Shark Music" and responses to challenging behavior
- Individualized Action Plans: Developing approaches for individual children's attachment needs that promote security
- Sustained Implementation Support: Ongoing coaching for consistent application over time
Questions About the Transition from COSP Classroom?
Are you a trained COSP Classroom Facilitator wondering how this change affects your work? We've created comprehensive guidance for facilitators trained in our previous classroom model.
View FAQ for COSP Classroom Facilitators
Frequently Asked Questions
COS Classroom includes approximately 6 hours of video content plus workbook activities, totaling 9-12 hours. Teachers work at their own pace with 6 months of course access.
The direct-access model eliminates barriers that prevent schools from implementing Circle of Security concepts, including scheduling conflicts, substitute coverage costs, staff turnover challenges, and the need for specialized facilitators.
Common obstacles include centers struggling to release teaching teams, mounting substitute costs, staff turnover requiring constant retraining, and multi-step facilitator training that structurally creates delays. The on-demand model allows teachers to engage during professional development time, work at their own pace, and join regardless of when they start their position.
Yes, COS Classroom offers complete flexibility—teachers can engage individually, in small groups, or as whole teams while maintaining individual logins and progress for assignments and certificates.
Yes, all professionals pursuing COS Classroom Coaching certification must first complete COS Classroom to understand the foundational content teachers receive.
COS Classroom Coaches come from diverse backgrounds including mental health, education, and early childhood development. Effective coaches develop knowledge across early childhood education, child development, mental health, and group care dynamics.
Yes, participants earn 1.2 IACET CEUs (12 seat hours) upon completion, meeting professional development requirements for early childhood educators.
COS Classroom focuses specifically on the attachment relationship between educator and child as the foundation for all learning. Rather than teaching discrete social-emotional skills, this approach helps children develop internal capacity for regulation and connection through secure relationships with teachers.
Circle of Security Classroom isn’t meant to replace your classroom curricula, but rather it’s foundational and leads to the success of other curriculum. To say this another way, can you imagine trying to make any curriculum work in the classroom if you don’t have secure attachment as a foundation with children? When children feel held in a safe and secure relationship, you can’t stop them from learning and developing lifelong capacities.
Many classroom models tend to assume that there’s a secure relationship with the teacher. We know that’s not always true. In fact, many early care professionals come from histories of trauma, and may struggle to trust that relationships are safe. And many children come with a history that makes it difficult for them to trust adults.
The overall goal of Circle of Security Classroom is to enhance or even develop security in relationships between teachers and children. It’s hard for any classroom program to work if teachers and children don’t trust the relationship.
COS Classroom creates positive outcomes for both children and educators by transforming classroom relationships and supporting teacher wellbeing through deeper understanding of attachment dynamics.
Benefits for Children:
- Enhanced emotional regulation and self-control
- Improved social skills and peer relationships
- Greater confidence in learning and academic exploration
- Increased resilience when facing challenges
- Stronger foundation for future teacher relationships
- Sense of confidence that their educator is in change and can keep them safe
Benefits for Teachers:
- Reduced stress
- Increased job satisfaction
- Practical tools for managing challenging classroom dynamics.
- Increased confidence
- Less burnout
- Strengthened parent relationships
- More feelings of being appreciated
- Increased resilience
COSI hosts an active registry of COS Classroom Coaches who have completed the specialized training as well as maintained annual continuing education requirements for endorsement. Once educators and centers complete the online Classroom training, they have access to the registry to contact a coach and inquire about their services. Endorsed COS Classroom Coaches and Educators enter independently into a coaching agreement. COSI serves as a third party to connect interested educators with qualified coaches.
Upon completion of all requirements of the COS Classroom Coaching course, coaches are endorsed for 2 years and kept active on the registry if desired. After 2 years, COS Classroom coaches need to participate in a minimum 2 sessions of coaching support in order to maintain endorsement and remain active as a provider of COS Classroom Coaching on our registry.
COS Classroom is currently available in English only. We are exploring translation opportunities for future releases.
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