A NEW school will be created on the site of St Peter and Paul RC Primary School in Stockton from September 1 this year.

The school will be formed when English Martyrs and St Peter and Paul RC Primary Schools close on August 31 and are merged for the start of the new school year.

The school organisation committee agreed to the move at a meeting earlier this week.

But a decision on a name for the new school has yet to be made.

Councillor Alex Cunningham, Stockton Borough Council's cabinet member for education, leisure and cultural services and chairman of the committee, said: "I'm pleased the children in the area can now look forward to a new school for the new year."

The next step will be to appoint a governing body for the new school, whose first duty will be to decide on the arrangements for the appointment of a headteacher. This is expected to happen early next term.

The governing body and headteacher will then work together to appoint the rest of the staff and to decide how the school will be organised.

* Meanwhile the first ground has been broken for Ingleby Barwick's new primary school.

St Francis of Assisi Voluntary Aided Primary School will be the first all-new Church of England primary school in the Diocese of York for nearly a century when it opens later this year.

The diocese is also involved with Stockton Borough Council in providing a secondary school for Ingleby Barwick, which is due to open next year.

Paul Bramley, headteacher at the primary school, said: "It is all about creating an environment where children can strive for excellence in all areas of life."

A plaque bearing the coat-of-arms of Ingleby Barwick, to be mounted in the new building, was presented by Mike Jones, chairman of the parish council, to Florrie Hunt, chairwoman of the new school's shadow governing body