Innovative schools in poland Historical and contemporary aspects

This paper shows innovative high schools in three historical periods in Poland: between the World Wars, in the period of so-called real socialism and after 1980. The selected schools have had and still have a special contribution in the history of pedagogical thought. Each school is analyzed in those aspects:the leading pedagogical ideas, an outline of the practical innovative activity and the more important achievements of students. We arrive to the conclusion that in each period those schools were created to: (1o period) a need to educate intellectual and moral elites capable of building a new Poland; (2º period) to strengthen the ideological and political assumptions of real socialism; (3o period) to take the opportunity to build authorial schools fit for the challenges and tasks of contemporary times.