You can choose your key children from the child’s menu in Journeys when your centre allows educators to manage their own allocations. If your centre manages allocations centrally, ask your manager to assign the children you support.
Key children give you a clear focus for the children whose learning you take particular responsibility for. The aim is to help you know each child well and work closely with their family, with contributions from the wider team.
Choose a key child
Open Journeys.
Use Search children to find the child.
Open the child’s three-dot menu and select Add to key children.
After your allocation is saved, the child appears in Key children. You do not need to create another child or start a new Journey to choose an existing child.
Remove a child from your key children
In Journeys, find the child in Key children.
Open the child’s three-dot menu and select Remove from key children.
Removing a key child removes your own key-educator allocation. It does not delete the child, their Journey or another educator’s allocation. If your centre restricts educator access, check any allocation change with your manager because allocations can affect access.
Why can’t I choose my own key children?
When Manage child allocations centrally is on, managers make key-child allocations and educators cannot choose their own key children. When it is off, educators can manage their own key children where their access permits. Restricted educator access is a separate setting and can also prevent self-assignment.
Your centre may coordinate allocations so someone can check how responsibility is shared across the team. Ask your manager to review your allocations in Settings → Team Management → Allocations & Access → Manage Child Allocations.
Manage key-child allocations explains these settings. If you cannot find the child at all, see Find a missing child or Journey.
Can a child have more than one key educator?
A child can have more than one key educator. Your team can share responsibility, including when educators work different days. Which children each educator can open or work with still depends on the centre’s access settings.
For a visual guide to the child menu and the rest of the page, see Find your way around Journeys.
Will I receive every family message if a child is my key child?
No. Making a child one of your key children does not guarantee access to every family conversation or a notification for every message. Allocations can affect which family chats you are eligible to access. Being able to open a chat and receiving an alert for a message are separate things.
If something is missing, tell your manager or Mana whether you cannot open the conversation, or you can open it but did not receive a notification. This helps them check the right issue without changing the child’s allocations unnecessarily.