Schools are required to be able to work with a diverse pupil population. Inclusion has more or less becomes a reality in school education, but the paths Czech schools have taken towards it differ from each other and a similar situation is found in other education systems (cf. Armstrong, Armstrong & Spandagou, 2010). This article inquires into how school leaders and teachers at ordinary basic schools work with pupil diversity in the course of the educational process. We will focus on two basic levels of such work: one is handling pupil diversity at the level of the whole school, for which we intend to describe strategies regarding common conditions and targets of education, while the other is the individual level, on which the specifics of individual pupils are taken into account.

            When emphasizing common education for all pupils, inclusive education departs from the prerequisite of special educational needs. Nevertheless, this prerequisite works with differentiation, which is also a crucial educational tool of inclusion. In many schools, differentiation is one of the ways of dealing with pupil diversity, both at the level of the whole school and in class. On the other hand, individual educational needs, which all pupils have, although these differ from each other, lead to individualization (Salamanca, 1994; Guidelines, 2005) and support of pupil participation in school life, therefore increasing the value of pupil diversity in favour of the whole (cf. Dyson et al, 2002; cf. Farell, 2004). A reaction to individual needs often requires cooperation among individuals as well as coordination of several procedures, both in the school and beyond it. As mentioned above, diversity is handled at two different levels, so work with diversity which affects the operation of the whole school is primarily associated with school management (cf. e.g. Leo & Barton, 2006; Irvine et al, 2010) and work with diversity in teaching, social relations and the social climate of the classroom is mainly associated with the job of teachers.

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