Calder High School's head teacher Stephen Ball believes children who are given short- term exclusions are left to hang around on the streets or spend the time at home unsupervised.

Instead the school in Mytholmroyd, near Hebden Bridge, is opening a centre for excluded pupils to ensure they are punished for disruptive behaviour but continue to receive an education on the school's site.

The centre, which opens in September, will be run for a two-year trial period with £50,000 funding from Calderdale Council. Calder High School is looking for two behaviour management specialists to staff the project.

The Conservatives announced plans yesterday to improve behaviour in schools by giving teachers more power to exclude rowdy pupils and remove parents' right to appeal to an independent panel if their child were to be excluded.

Mr Ball said he believed the current fixed-term exclusion system where pupils are removed from school for a limited period of time was not working.

However, he said schools needed to work with disruptive pupils to ensure their behaviour improved and any problems were addressed rather than just exclude them.

He said: "We want to develop a range of strategies that meet the needs of individual children rather than giving them the sanction of a fixed-term exclusion which is the inevitable consequence of poor behaviour and which isn't any good at all for the pupil.

"Fixed-term exclusions simply let children out onto the street, they fall further and further behind and its more than likely they will be doing something they shouldn't be while they are out there. If their parents or carers work then they could be unsupervised."

Under the new scheme "dangerous or disturbed" pupils will still face permanent exclusion for serious acts of bad behaviour but all pupils given fixed-term exclusions will be kept on site to receive personal tuition.

Mr Ball said he expected there to be no more than two or three pupils based in the centre at any one time.

He said: "It will start later than the normal school and finish later so pupils will not be able to spend time with their friends at break or lunch times.

"The stigma and isolation will be the sanction element of this approach.

"But what we need to do is make sure young people are capable of learning. In my experience just continually punishing a young person does not lead to good behaviour."

The excluded pupils will be given literacy and numeracy lessons and could also be asked to do coursework during the sessions.

Mr Ball said: "It is an innovative approach. The only school we are aware of that does anything similar is in Devon.The people working in the centre will be behaviour management specialist but they will not necessarily be teachers."

Calderdale Council's Cabinet member for children and young people's services, Coun Craig Whittaker, welcomed the new scheme.

He said: "It is important to remember that exclusion is the last resort after a range of other measures have been tried.

"Traditionally what happens is that the child who is excluded is sent home where they can be left to their own devices if their parents are working.

"What we are looking to do through this scheme is see if we can create a different way of coping with this process by re-engaging with these young people at a centre of excellence designed for this purpose."