Description: Output steering is a central element of new educational governance. By setting certain benchmarks in advance, schools are expected to achieve the respective goals. But often enough schools do not know how to transform the knowledge of goals into knowledge of action. This leads to the questions about the importance of the school to promote students' cross-curricular competences, and about the factors that influence the development of these competences. This question has been investigated in a longitudinal study in Switzerland (N=1434). We analysed the development of cross-curricular competences of students from grade ten to grade twelve in high school in 2001 and 2004 on the basis of a questionnaire for students (Grob & Maag Merki 2001). In the second phase of this research project we used a questionnaire for students and teachers to assess their perceptions of the school climate and the learning processes in class. The results show effects of schooling for promoting students' cross-curricular competences. Depending on the particular competences, there are different factors which have an impact on their development.