Positive relationships: Key Person System - Pick your own

It is now mandatory that nurseries have a key person system where a practitioner is responsible for a small group of children and does the main caring. Some settings are now waiting for a child to choose their own key person instead of allocating one.

Tina Jones, owner/manager of Carrington Day Nursery in Nottingham, says, 'When a parent registers with the nursery we invite them to attend a welcome session with their child. The aim is to spend time with their family and find out as much information as we can. At that point we used to appoint two key people.

'But we found that once the child started with us, like adults they would form natural associations with some people rather than others. We would then reflect on our key person decisions and think that we'd not always made the best ones.

'Now we organise settling-in sessions for the child. There is no charge and they spend a couple of hours in the nursery on, we recommend, at least two occasions. We can then observe the child, take into account the information given by the parents and see who they are drawn to. The child then effectively chooses their own key person. We often clearly see who they are most comfortable with.'

This system has evolved over the past two years and has been welcomed by both parents and staff. The majority of children pick a key person at the settling-in sessions, but on the rare occasion that does not happen, the head of the room is assigned to the child until they engage with a member of staff.

Being flexible

Early years adviser Maria Robinson welcomes the system as long as children are well supported. 'The devil is in the detail - it would not be good if the setting waits weeks before the child picks a key person, with the child floundering and picking someone out of desperation,' she says. 'It is certainly not good if the key person and child don't seem to get on. Occasionally it can happen that two personalities do not gel, such as an ultra-sensitive child and a jolly, outgoing key person. It is all about having a structure in place, but also being flexible.'

This flexibility has been adopted at Pound Park Nursery School and Early Years Centre in Greenwich, London. They had a period of the children choosing their key person but, says deputy head Lynn Hand, it 'was not a success because at different times of the day the children went to different adults'. Now, if the child does not form a bond with the allocated key person, that key person is changed. Last term, this occurred just four times, out of 40 children.

'The child can indicate that they want to swap, such as consistently asking for one person to change them; they ask for the person they are most comfortable with. Also, we have free flow, and certain children can gravitate to an area and spend a lot of time with a member of staff there so that they form a link because of a shared interest,' explains Ms Hand.

'We had a staff meeting and all staff agreed that it was right to change key people if children were not happy. It is not worth the adult getting upset about this because we put the children's interests above everything else and respect children as individuals, so the staff member should not take it personally.

'There is no cut-off to when we change key people. Some children take longer than others to settle so we take each case individually. We have to be flexible for the children. We want the children to have as much autonomy as possible. We respect that some people gel better than others. Sometimes people suit some children, sometimes they don't.'

Smooth transition

Julian Grenier, head of Kate Greenaway Nursery School and Children's Centre, London, expresses some concerns about children selecting their key person. 'For me, the key person system starts with the need to organise for the child to have a smooth transition from parent to a particular member of staff who has got to know the child, and who the child knows. So if a child arrives in nursery and is then left to "choose" the key person, what happens in those early stages? There is no-one specifically focusing on that child, working closely with the parents to settle them in, etc, which does not seem a good idea to me,' he says.

'Secondly, a situation would probably arise where one key person might have, say, six children, and another key person only one child. This would make it difficult to operate, as well as giving rise to a minefield of difficult emotions. For example, one person feeling rejected, the other feeling like they are doing all the work.'

This is a concern that Ms Jones initially had. 'I was worried that children may gravitate towards the same staff members, but in fact we don't find that. I was worried that there may be an imbalance, but children are all so different - they have differing personalities and characters, as have our staff. The staff team are all very warm and engaging. Perhaps if a member of staff was not warm, then an imbalance would happen, but all our staff are committed to forming positive relationships with the children so that has never happened,' she explains.

'The characters of the staff team differ, so some are outgoing whereas others are quiet and gentle. We have a broad range of people, which is why we are able to match them up with the children. Some of the children are gregarious and outgoing and they tend to be attracted to the more outgoing staff, whereas others are quieter and need staff who are softer and more gentle in their approach.'

It is thought that the settling-in period is now a lot quicker. Ms Jones notes that it is particularly beneficial when it comes to older children's transition to nursery, increasingly more common now many mothers take a year's maternity leave. 'The younger babies tend to settle more easily because they have not developed separation anxiety or wariness of strangers,' she says. 'But because older children have had a year at home with mum, the transition process needs more careful handling; for them, choosing their key person is even more important.'

FURTHER READING

- Key People series by Anne O'Connor (Nursery World, 13 March 2008, 10 April 2008, 8 May 2008, 12 June 2008, 10 July 2008)

- Sally Thomas (Feb 2008), 'Nurturing Babies and Children Under Four' DVD and resource pack (Heinemann)

- Peter Elfer, Elinor Goldschmied, Dorothy Selleck (2003) Key Persons in the Nursery: Building Relationships for Quality Provision (David Fulton)

- Elinor Goldschmied and Sonia Jackson (1994) People Under Three - Young Children in Daycare (Routledge)