It's morning song time in the sunlit gym of St Columba's special school and day centre for Travellers in Dublin's north inner city.

The pupils are lined up on three rows of benches, the youngest girls seated up front with their gold hooped earrings catching the light and their long hair tied up in braids or ponytails.

The principal, Martina Monks, blows a small whistle and bids good morning to her "scholars".

"Good morning, Mar-ti-na," they echo.

"Which families are going travelling this weekend?" Martina asks, and Mary in the back row raises her hand. "We are going to Limerick," she says.

"Off in the Hiace," replies Martina.

St Columba's is a unique school and day centre catering for 60 at-risk and educationally disadvantaged children from 3-1/2 to 12.

Twelve of the school's 21 families are, like Mary's, transient. The remainder live in temporary unserviced sites on the sides of roads or in group or integrated housing or sheltered accommodation in Co Dublin.

Three vans collect the children each morning from places including Ringsend, Rathfarnham and the Naas Road and ferry them to the school where they eat breakfast. When the children's families move sites, the transport service follows them. St Columba's is one of almost 900 recipients of grants totalling £6.1 million raised by the People in Need Trust through last year's RTE Telethon.

The £25,000 grant for St Columba's will buy computers, a photocopier and remedial teaching materials, as well as funding a training visit by a British expert on discipline for children from crisis backgrounds.

The children are below average academically, and their daily timetables place heavy emphasis on remedial English and maths as well as social, personal and health education.

A recent assessment of 48 pupils found 26 per cent in the extra-low intelligence category, compared to less than 5 per cent of the full population. Less than 15 per cent were of average intelligence, compared to 50 per cent of the full population.

The school is in Great Strand Street which runs along the rear of the Morrison Hotel, parallel with Lower Ormond Quay. A bright 40ft mural of Jack and his beanstalk looms over the internal courtyard playground.

Ms Monks says the school is in financial crisis. Since she became principal in 1989 "the single most difficult problem for me is to meet running costs," she says. She is a resourceful woman and has approached local businesses for funds, including Fyffes, which currently subsidises the salary of the school's secretary.

She recalls in the early days asking shop owners in Capel Street for donations of paint for the classrooms, which the teachers then painted themselves.

St Columba's capitation grant from the Department of Education and Science from 1999 to 2000 was £9,441. The day centre is funded by the Eastern Regional Health Authority.

"The stark reality of Strand Street is that we are caught in a poverty trap, and the principal is a full time fund-raiser," she says.

"Despite the fact that our pupils are coming out with huge educational difficulties and learning problems, the Department is not recognising those difficulties."

Ms Monks opens a brown folder on her desk containing details of the £55,000 the school has received from the People in Need Trust since 1990, including this year's £25,000 grant.

She rattles off basic items this money has allowed her to purchase: shelving, blinds, kitchen equipment, literacy materials, a CD player, a vacuum cleaner, a photocopier, computers.

"Other schools have parents who organise computer rooms," she says. "It's not easy to fund-raise for Travellers. It's easier to fund-raise for children who have physical handicaps. With Travellers, it's almost as if they don't deserve the money. They are in their own plight. People fail to see that children here deserve the same services."

Along the corridor in Clare's Resource Room three children wearing headphones are engrossed in interactive computer programmes called Word Shark, aimed at improving their English. A snarling shark's face appears on screen and prompts eight-year-old Nan Cawley to type in a word.

Part of this year's People in Need grant will equip this small room with more computers and proper desks for them. "People in Need have never let us down, and I've never had to feel like I was begging," says Ms Monks.

A programme reviewing the highlights of Telethon 2000 and outlining the grant allocations will be broadcast on RTE 1 next Monday, May 7th, at 6.30 p.m.