FURTHER strikes planned by teachers have been cancelled after union and school bosses reached an agreement.

The on-going dispute had seen some teachers walk out at Pleckgate High School in Blackburn for a total of seven days since the end of January.

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More strikes were planned in the weeks leading up to the Easter holidays after teaching union NASUWT accused the school of failing to implement its own policies.

Union chiefs said their members were being denied a legitimate pay rise and would continue to strike until numerical targets that were 'setting members up to fail' were dropped.

The action, which saw around 20 teachers walk out of the Pleckgate Road school, was the longest held since the NASUWT union started to ballot its members in 2011 over possible strikes. The school remained open throughout the action.

Teachers had threatened a further seven day walk-out over three weeks, but following 'positive discussions' last week the action has now been cancelled.

In a joint statement Sharon Roscoe, chief executive of the Education Partnership Trust, which runs Pleckgate, and John Girdley, Lancashire’s NASUWT national executive member, said: "We are pleased that an agreement has been reached and that this matter has been resolved, and we can all continue to work towards our school becoming outstanding, with the students receiving a first-class education.”

Mr Girdley added: "We wish the school well."

During the action in an open letter to the headteacher Mark Cocker, teachers, who had formed a picket line in front of the school, said they had no problem with targets.

They said: "But when us passing our targets depends on things which are out of our hands e.g. whether children choose to work to their highest standard all the time, whether they choose to revise, whether they choose to attend school on a regular basis to name but a few, we have no control over whether we pass or fail. This is unfair."

Pleckgate has more than 1,000 pupils. It became an academy in February.