A FORMER Darwen head teacher is negotiating early retirement in the wake of a damning inspection report.

John Strivens, who left Darwen Vale High School as head in 1999, is set to resign from his post at Lancaster's Skerton High next month after being told by Her Majesty's Inspectorate that the school was failing.

The move comes a week after it emerged that Darwen Moorland High School was being put under special measures by the Office for Standards in Education inspectors.

The Lancaster school was visited by HMI inspectors in January 2003, just four months after Mr Strivens took over from previous head Peter Doyle.

They then made another two-day inspection and the report was revealed to the school in November.

It was concluded that not enough progress had been made since the last inspection in 2001 and the school was put under 'special measures'.

Mr Strivens said: "The school was inspected as a school in challenging circumstances.

"Long-term problems with teaching and learning, behaviour and attendance were noted and the school was given six months in which to improve sufficiently to avoid special measures.

"It was re-inspected and judged not to have made sufficient progress in that time."

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said George Lloyd, head at Bishop Rawstorne Languages College in Croston, would take his place as head until at least the end of December this year.