ABSTRACT
The National Agreement As mentioned in Chapter 2, the national agreement on Raising Standards and Tackling Workload (hereafter The National Agreement) (DfES 2003a) was signed on 15 January 2003 by the English Department for Education and Skills, the Welsh Assembly government, five of the six unions representing teachers and headteachers, three unions representing support staff, and the organization representing teachers’ employers. However, the largest education union, the NUT, refused to sign for reasons explained below. The National Agreement set out a seven-point plan designed to reduce the number of hours teachers and school leaders worked, and to improve pupil outcomes (ibid.: 52).
