TEACHERS in Selby have welcomed plans to set up a pupil referral unit in the district for children with behaviour problems.

The proposal comes as part of a review of specialist education provision by North Yorkshire County Council.

The unit will cater for about 15 youngsters, who have had to leave mainstream education due to behavioural, emotional, and social difficulties.

Children are taught the national curriculum, as in mainstream schools.

But they learn in much smaller groups, allowing teachers more time to spend dealing with the youngsters' extracurricular problems.

Jane Guy, head teacher at Longman's Hill Primary School, Brayton, near Selby, said: "All the head teachers in both primary and secondary schools have been aware that children with these problems need support, above what has been provided in the past.

"The district has been deemed not sufficiently supported, so it's fabulous that they're going to set up a pupil referral unit - it's what we've been fighting for.

"At the moment children have to travel to a unit in Scarborough, but that is not ideal. Children with behavioural problems need support locally.

"It is not a naughty kids' unit. These children have got behavioural difficulties for a whole range of reasons.

"They could have been affected by autism, meningitis as a baby, brain injuries, or all sorts of trauma.

"These children aren't choosing to do the wrong thing."

She said the new provision would benefit also children in mainstream education, who could sometimes have their schooling affected by children with behavioural difficulties.

Coun Caroline Patmore, the county council's executive member for special educational needs, said North Yorkshire currently had two pupil referral units, in Scarborough and Harrogate.

She said the new unit in Selby could be located in the town centre.

"We're proposing to put a further three into the county," she said.

"One will be in Selby, and it will serve the whole of the district, so we want it to be as central as possible "There is no such facility at the moment, so the children are either being educated at home, or are receiving a small bit of teaching each week."

She said the unit would be opened some time between 2007 and 2009.