The poster presents results our research study which is a part of the project Centre of basic research on schooling. Basic Research Centre is a departmental program of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, which aims at encouraging the cooperation between research institutions in the Czech Republic, at enhancing their competitive strength in the European context and at contribution to the education of young researchers. The aim of the research study is to describe real shape of Czech schools functioning and identity potential of schools for quality assurance. The main research question is: Is there some development potential in the schools? What does it consist in? It is evident it has to be divided into more concrete questions called propositions (Yin 1994). Our aim is not only to describe school, but identify potential of the internal development. Every school is determined by its equipment, conditions and sources (including human sources) and by composition of pupils (ethnic, economic, family background). We would like concentrate on the three areas: interpersonal relationships (leadership, classroom management, professional discourse, team building, cooperation with parents and community); teacher professional development (frequency, quality, implementation, evaluation) school curriculum (planned and realized curricula). An attention on the school curriculum is driven by the fact that the Czech schools are in the initial stage of the curricula reform. They are starting to implement their own school curricula into the first and six grades in the school year 2007/2008. We mostly rely on the teachers as key actors in school. Therefore the potential of the internal change we expect to find mostly in their work. However we are prepared to identify other concrete factors which influence potential of internal change of school. The character of planned multi-case study will have descriptive as good as exploratory nature.

The research was performed by multi-case study of five Czech basic schools in different regions. We used the mixed methodology with number of qualitative and quantitative methods. Research team run detailed exploration through individual interviews with teachers, focus groups with students, plenty of classroom observations, audio and video records and standardized questionnaires for students and teachers. For data analysis we used MAXQDA software. With respect to concept “pragmatic validity” (Nuthall 2004) we did validisation through member checking. Before finishing the interpretation writing the report we visited the schools and asked the school actors to comment our findings and conclusions.

The study deepened understanding the school values and climate, pedagogical conception of the school, roles of the teachers, interpersonal relationships and other factors which have relevant impact on the school quality and effectiveness. The study provided detailed knowledge about possibilities and the obstacles fulfilling autonomous role of school, elucidated internal structures which have strong influence on the everyday school life.