I DON'T do happy . . . headteacher Laura Hurley knew she had a special job to do when one of her new charges - who was just out of nursery school - told her his short but sad story.

But Mrs Hurley and her staff at the Rossendale Pupil Referral Unit helped the youngster back to cheerful childhood normality and into a mainstream primary school.

Before he left the unit in Burnley Road he told her: "I do happy now."

The Rossendale centre takes in children aged from four to 11 who have been excluded from their primary school or who suffer emotional and behavioural difficulties. Many, of course, are referred on both counts.

And its staff have been just been the subject of 'the best report I have ever written' by Ofsted government inspector Dr Alan Dobbins.

"It's a great tribute to the teachers and the assistants who do a great job," said Mrs Hurley, who has been in charge since 1999 after joining as a teacher 16 years ago.

"Children who come here have often had a terrible start in life. They're often sad. But we make learning fun. After a while, they want to be here," she added.

The strategy works. After two or three terms pupils are invariably ready to be reintegrated into the mainstream, where they will become members of the school society which had to send them away.

How do teachers cope with such difficult children who are already carrying the baggage of hard times and all-too-often a brief life spent in care?