Today Finland is well known about its high quality success in school achievement in international comparisons. But how do the pupils with special educational needs (SEN) survive in schools? Are these pupils a burden for the results or is special education of these students a key factor explaining the high standard in PISA studies?There is a vast palette of special education services in schools for pupils with special needs. In 2003 there were 27 % of all pupils, who received special education (Tilastokeskus 2004). Most of them were students in part-time special education, and 1,8 % of pupils were placed in separate special schools (Tilastokeskus 2004). The trend to include all pupils in joint, one school has strengthened strongly during last 4 years. Part time special education is internationally compared a unique sub-system in Finnish basic education. Principally it provides pedagogical support in inclusive settings for all children with some special educational need. Practically it concentrates on language and maths related problems. The emphasis of part time special education is on three first grades reflecting preventive educational strategy. Developing inclusive school: case JyväskyläJyväskylä is a medium-size city in central Finland with about 83 000 inhabitants. The process of developing inclusive school started by arguing for inclusive ideology. Parents asked: What will happen to my child, is s/he going to learn well in a big classroom? Teachers asked: How do I manage with THEM? How do others accept the SEN pupils as classmates? Former special schools were replaced with small groups in regular schools and special school teachers were placed in regular schools.There were given four main research questions: 1.What are the assumptions of teaching children in one school for all? 2.What kind of changes there are in the assumptions? 3.Is the model really working well? 4.How do the pupils evaluate the quality of school life?The research sample consisted of 230 teachers including 9 principals, and 27 school aids. The sample also contained 903 children (2nd , 5th and 8th graders) and 749 parents. The data was gathered by using four different kind of questionnaires. ResultsThe attitudes towards inclusion among teachers are usually quite critical. There was a change in the attitudes in six years: the number of those teachers who favour inclusion had increased. On the other hand, there were more of those teachers who were strongly suspicious about inclusion. The parents' comprehensions about the effects of inclusive teaching were mainly negative. The pupils thought that placing children with SEN has no significant effect on their learning and living in the classrooms. ConclusionsDeveloping inclusive school seems to be much easier on the ideological than on practical level. Teachers are willing to accept children with SEN into their classrooms, when speaking of acceptance in an abstract level. They are members of democratic society, where individual approach is highly valued and people are seen more equal than diverse. But when the question is of concrete pupils, difficulties will raise. Especially children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties are hard to meet in classes. They challenge not only the teachers but the whole school system. Support, team and net working are crucial issues in inclusive schools. Encouraging finding was that the main actors, pupils themselves, do really tolerate their classmates with SEN in the classes. Children do not see inclusive classes as problematic as adults. And that is the most important ground to build up real inclusive school.