Young people are human beings and can have a lot of difficulties out of school as well as in school

Gwyneth Lloyd, Edinburgh University

A Joseph Rowntree Foundation research project interviewed professionals, young people and parents, in six secondary schools, across three regions.

It found that schools were most effective where youth workers and a range of professionals worked with pupils.

At an Edinburgh University conference on Tuesday, various academics were discuss ways of preventing the high number of exclusions from Scotland's schools.

The university's Gwyneth Lloyd said pupils must work alongside relevant bodies to address the problem.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme, she said: "Young people are human beings and can have a lot of difficulties out of school as well as in school.

"The kind of strategies that were really successful was when professionals were very non-judgemental and very genuine with the young people.

"They saw them as whole human beings and not just problems to be solved.

"One of the things we found sometimes is that when schools were saying they were supporting children and avoiding exclusion, that the young people were not very included."

The units would have to work to keep the pupils within the main stream and "not operate as sin bins", Mrs Lloyd added.

In June, the Scottish Executive announced a series of measures which it said would tackle indiscipline.

These included teaching disruptive pupils in separate classrooms, a school uniform for every school and skills classes to help parents of children with discipline problems.