It’s early February, which means the January intake is about a month in. Somewhere in your setting there is almost certainly still a little one crying at drop-off, a parent lingering anxiously at the door asking whether she’s “settled yet”, and a key person quietly wondering if they’re doing something wrong.
They almost certainly aren’t. Settling in isn’t an event with a deadline; it’s a relationship being built, and relationships take the time they take. A month is nothing in the life of a two-year-old who has just discovered that the world contains rooms without her mother in them.
What the key person approach is actually for
The key person approach is a statutory requirement of the EYFS, but it would be worth doing even if it weren’t. The thinking behind it goes back to Bowlby and Ainsworth: young children need a secure base, a familiar adult they can rely on, before they can relax enough to explore, play and learn. At home that’s usually a parent. In your setting, it’s the key person, and the role is a genuine relationship, not a name on a coat peg and a line in the paperwork.
You can see when it’s working. The child seeks their key person out, checks back with them from across the room, recovers from upsets faster in their arms than anyone else’s. That checking-back behaviour isn’t clinginess. It’s the secure base doing its job, and it’s the platform every bit of learning stands on.
Settling-in that respects how attachment works
Good settling-in follows from the theory. Gradual sessions that build up, a parent present at the start, the same adult greeting the child at every handover, a familiar object from home living in their bag. And consistent goodbyes: always say goodbye, never slip out while the child is distracted. Sneaking off feels kinder in the moment and costs you dearly afterwards, because the child learns that a parent can vanish at any time, and starts watching the door instead of playing.
It helps to say plainly to parents that distress at separation is not a sign of failure. The child who cries hard at drop-off and is happily elbow-deep in the water tray eight minutes later is doing something developmentally healthy: protesting a separation that matters, then letting a trusted adult help them recover. The one worth watching more closely is the child who never protests and never seeks anyone out.
Some children arrive with attachment histories that make all of this harder. Where early relationships have been disrupted or unreliable, the same approach still works; it just needs more repetition, more predictability and more patience. For some children, their key person is the most reliable adult in their week. That’s worth taking seriously, and it’s worth support and supervision for the practitioner carrying it.
Our course Attachment Theory and the Key Person Approach covers the theory properly (Bowlby, Ainsworth and attachment styles), what the EYFS actually requires of the role, settling-in from day one, supporting children with insecure or disrupted attachments, and how to work with parents as partners rather than spectators.
Parents are part of the attachment picture
One worry surfaces a lot in settling-in conversations, even if it’s rarely said out loud: “will she stop loving me if she loves you?” The honest answer is no. Attachment isn’t a cake with a fixed number of slices. A strong bond with a key person doesn’t compete with home; it echoes it. Sharing the small moments of the day, being honest about the wobbles as well as the wins, and asking parents about comfort rituals from home all build the same trust with the parent that you’re building with the child.
Make your key person approach more than a name on a peg
Attachment Theory and the Key Person Approach turns the research into everyday practice and comes with an NFAQ-accredited certificate on completion.
By half term, most of the January criers will be down to a wobble and a wave. Not because anyone forced it, but because a patient adult turned up for them, every day, until the room felt safe.