COUNCIL bosses have rubber stamped plans to close and then immediately reopen a struggling Bolton school and link it to one of the town's most successful schools.

Bolton Council's Executive members took just minutes at a town hall meeting to approve a plan to relaunch the failing Deane School in September, 2004, and federate it with the highly successful Rivington and Blackrod High School in Horwich.

A final decision will be made by independent body the School Organisation Committee in December.

The Deane will close on August 31 next year but will re-open under a different name the following day on the same Junction Road site.

The school -- branded a 'failure' by government Inspectors since 2001 -- will forge strong links with Rivington and Blackrod School, share best practices and be led by one governing body and one executive headteacher.

The school was placed in special measures in 2001 after Inspectors found it was failing to provide an acceptable standard of education.

An Ofsted report slammed the quality of teaching, criticised management and highlighted poor GCSE results.

A raft of improvement measures were placed in the school including more governors and new headteacher Tony Hill.

Although the 800 pupil strong school has made progress since then, it has failed to come out of special measures and education bosses say it is unlikely to do so.

Early next year all 78 staff members at the Deane School, including the Headteacher, will have to re-apply for their jobs.

RBHS has a good track record of working in partnership with other schools. Education bosses have pledged that the federation will benefit the education of pupils in both schools.

Education bosses hope the federation will accelerate the Deane's progress.