“I get by with a little help from my friends”: The importance of peer-led emotion work during the primary to secondary school transition

School children experience a range of normative transitions throughout their compulsory education, with the transition from primary to secondary school seen as the most intensive and challenging. While this transition is well researched, the focus of such work has been labelled disparate and lacking in terms of its focus on the pupils’ experiences specifically. Consequently, to alleviate these concerns, this article draws on qualitative data gathered in a series of individual interviews with first year secondary school children currently experiencing the transition. The findings captured showcase a range of difficulties, brought about by the transition, and while the students were able to identify strategies designed to ease these issues, they found most solace in peer-led emotion work-based support. The implications of these findings, in terms of the positioning of children as focal points of support for transition-based concerns, and their ability to engage in meaningful emotion work grounded in the ethics of care are discussed and suggestions for future practice are made.