In many European countries, school inspection plays an important role on the systemic, regional, school and individual level of the national evaluation systems. Inspection reports often make important base of the feedback given by inspectors in order to support the individual school´s improvement. Being public or confidential, describing specific findings in details, or more generally, the role and form of inspection reports can tell us a lot about how education systems try to support (or control) their schools through inspection process. The Czech School Inspection system is currently transforming its tools and methodologies and there is an ongoing discussion about the role and form of inspection reports to best fulfil the needs of the system, school and school stakeholders.

The aim of this research is to find answers for the main research question: How can role, purpose and form of an inspection report influence the way in which a school can use this report for its further improvement? The first part of the research activities seeks to provide comparative analysis of roles, proposes and forms of inspection reports within several inspection systems, namely in England, Scotland, Netherlands and Czech Republic. The second part of the research aims to map development of inspection reports in the Czech Republic and to show each phase of development within its context of inspection policy and methodology as well as a role which the specific inspection report form played for the individual school improvement. The third part of the research is to find out views of experienced school principals on the changes of roles, purpose and forms of inspection reports in the Czech Republic and their usability for schools.

The best source for the first part of the research can be found in 1) informative documents gathered by SICI (Standing International Conference of Inspectorates) within its network thematic activity Supporting school improvement: the role of inspectorates across Europe; 2) in national background reports for the OECD research OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes; 3)in documents published by individual School Inspectorates. Sources of the second part of the research will consist of Czech School Inspectorate archive documents, electronic register of inspection reports and especially interviews with inspectors and officials who have had direct impact on development of inspection policies and methodologies. Process tracing is the main method to be applied for this part of research. Within the third part of the research, several interviews with experienced principals are to clarify their views on inspection report form changes and to provide better understanding why some inspection report forms can be considered as more useful for school principals, than others.

In the light of ongoing transformation of the Czech School Inspectorate policies and methodologies, this research aims to provide evidence and perspective which could help inspection policy and methodology makers to decide what kind of approach to choose in order to obtain inspection reports that are able to fulfil system level purposes but can be at the same time beneficial for the schools themselves.

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