The mandatory school-based curriculum development is a key feature of the recent reforms of the Czech educational system. Curricular planning – including the macro-level – should become an integral part of every teachers’ professional role. All basic (i. e. primary and lower secondary) schools have prepared their own school curricula recently. However, little is known about the variability of school curricula. We know even less about the relationship between the planned curriculum described in the curricular project and the implemented curriculum that pupils experience in the classroom. While Czech basic schools as organizations differ significantly in many aspects, we expect that their new curricula reflect the stability of schooling as a state and societal institution (Berg, 2007). Our research questions were: Is a national curricular framework an valuable asset, a curricular capital (Shulman, Shulman 2004), a burden, or a document of no relevance to schools? What differences emerge among the individual school curricula? Why did teachers in particular school change the content, its scope or sequence? Have school curricular project any impact on actual teaching and learning in the schools?

There is no agreed-upon method of analyzing the curriculum (National Research Council, 2004). Content analysis was used as a tool to describe the variation of school curricula. The research is part of a larger research multiple case study (Stake, 2006) of five Czech schools. The findings on school curricular projects are compared and contrasted with other data on schools obtained by semi-structured interviews with more than 50 teacher, qualitative observation of their classes, questionnaires etc.

First experiences suggest that the scope and sequence of subject matter do not differ considerably in individual school curricula. Commercially produced textbooks remain an important factor influencing the teaching and learning in the basic school. However, the curricular materials developed and used by teachers provide interesting insight into the teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and contribute to the broad picture of the school.