The article focuses on school inspections as an instrument for school development and aims to clarify how schools cope with the results which are generated by it. It is based on the assumption that the specific situation of a school has an impact on how and in what way the results are received and dealt with in schools. In order to support this argument, this article contains the findings of case studies (based on interviews and surveys) carried out in mainstream schools in Germany. The article provides empirical insight about different ways schools cope with the inspection results, revealing that the extent to which an established organisational structure of development work exists within the schools is particularly important for effectively using the inspection results. This article draws attention to the necessity to adapt the kind of support to the individual schools.