Leadership training for pupils as an instrument of pupil support for primary-to-secondary school transition

Aims: This paper examines leadership training as a potential instrument for children's development. It analyses the impact of specific leadership training on pupils' self-perceptions and peer evaluations of their leadership skills. It focuses on the particularly vulnerable period of pupil transition from primary to secondary school which is normally associated with several agespecific, psychological/emotional and social challenges. Methods: The study applied an experimental method in social psychology. Self-evaluation and peer evaluation tests were used to measure the effects of the training sessions and to compare results in experimental and control groups. The study collected data from two primary schools and involved 78 pupils and 5 teachers. In the general sample of pupils, 32 children were identified as potential leaders. This cohort of pupils (32) was split into experimental and control groups for further pre-training and post-training evaluations. Conclusions: The article outlines the results of the leadership training sessions in the experimental group and compares them to the performance of the control group. The findings illuminate the dynamics of pupils' self-perceptions and peer evaluations over the period of transition from primary to secondary school.