Purpose. The article presents theoretical interpretation of the experience in developing and implementing the competition project named «”School and society” intellectual competitions for schoolchildren» as a component of educational and professional training of future primary school teachers. Methodology and Approach. The content and function characteristics are given to define the directions of work at the competition project implementation; the effectiveness of each stage is evaluated basing on the dynamics of the competition results and reflexive data on identifying the students’ readiness to lead the research activities of schoolchildren. Results. Positive changes in students’ readiness to lead schoolchildren’s research activity were noted. These changes were fixed during students’ participation in the contest project realization on the following criteria: ability to take into account schoolchildren’s cognitive interest while formulating the problem (theme) of the research, knowledge of the logics of the research work stages, understanding the didactic importance of the research work as a productive method of studying, ability to work in a team as well as in the situation of uncertainty and risk. Theoretical and Practical implications. The results obtained contribute to the practice of updating the content-functional model of future teachers’ training to implement the research approach in teaching.