THERE is a special room in St James's CBS Primary School Dublin, where small groups of boys or girls learn to play and be friends. "It's like a little house," says one parent.

"You know by going into this room that the children are valued" says Maeve O'Brien, the home school community liason co-ordinator attached to the Basin Street school. "They look after it themselves, the way you would love to have your home." The children who come to this room are considered to be `at risk' educationally.

It's a light, airy room with white curtains blowing gently in the breeze. Three boys aged about eight years are sitting around a table with teacher Sine ad Duffy and her assistant Susan McGuire having a sort of picnic. Tea has been poured and everyone is eating bread with strawberry jam.

"They were very hungry today so they decided they'd like to do some cooking," says Sine ad. The boys stop licking the jam off their fingers for a minute to explain how they made French toast. As Sine ad talks about paintings they did last week, they bring them over proudly. Then they wander one by one over to a couch and, like little brothers, three of them huddle happily over a book.

This is where children thought to be in danger of school failure come twice each week for 90 minutes. The project is there "to develop self respect" and "to help them cope better with school". It is part of a one-year pilot project which began last December for children from both St James's and the Mater Dei Primary School across the road.

The aim is to give some of the most under-privileged children in the area a better chance in school. Two other nearby schools, Scoil Iosagain CBS in Dolphin's Barn and the Marist School on Sundrive Road, are also running the project.

"The children are very secretive at first," says Helen Meehan, a parent who helps out at the school. Like two other parents, Susan McGuire and Noreen Traynor, she is a FAS assistant and works on the project.

Since the project started "the change in the children is unbelievable," says Meehan. "They get to trust you as well. They see us as a mammy". The children's school attendance has improved. "They hate to miss their time in here, says Maeve O'Brien. "The teachers say that the children are calmer and that the withdrawn ones are coming out of themselves. They're proud of any work they do. They really live for their project days.

"They cannot play the way other children play. They would be very aggressive and at risk of dropping out. They know this is a place where you are available to listen to them."

The children, from second, third and fourth class. generally range in age from 7 to 10. Usually there are about six in any group. There is a long waiting list with up to 24 names on it currently.

O'Brien says that it is a preventative project. "It's aimed at those who are at risk of educational failure because of social and emotional difficulties."

A key aim is to develop self-esteem. It is hoped that they will develop skills to cope with life and school. When they come back to their classroom, they show off what they may have made or painted, and then "they snap back into the classroom," says Brother Bart Jacob, principal of St James's school.

To date, those who have worked to establish the project have not been able to secure any funding. Maeve O'Brien is afraid that there is a now a real danger that it will come to an end after December.

"It's critical for the children that this project continues," she says. They will drop out if it doesn't continue and it's so little to ask."

The four schools involved in this work are worried about funding after Christmas. Initial funding for the one-year pilot project came from a local development grant. Today the question of the project's future is a major cloud on the horizon for the schools. As yet, O'Brien and the project committee have been unable to secure funding for another year.

"I'm very concerned," says Jacob. "If we have no funding the whole thing stops. We've tried everywhere. The Christian Brothers themselves have been very good to us over the years. They are our only hope. But I wouldn't blame them if they didn't fund us. It's really the responsibility of the Department of Education."

A spokesman for the Department of Education told The Irish Times last week that it was not in a position to take on the funding of the project. "We are fully committed to existing intervention schemes, such as the Breaking the Cyclc scheme," he said.