The answers come rapidly when you ask the pupils at St John's in Dungarvan what they like about going to school: "games", "painting", "football", "dinners."
Catering for 42 children and teenagers with mild learning disabilities, the school provides education in a positive environment for pupils whose special needs could not be catered for in mainstream education.
With more State support, however, it could be doing much more, according to the school's acting principal, Ms Anna Kirwan.
Improvements have been made in the special education area and more are promised but they are coming too slowly for the pupils at St John's and other schools like it.
This year, for example, the school has to cope without a speech and language therapist because of a staff shortage at the South Eastern Health Board. A similar service at the larger St Joseph's school for children with special needs in Waterford city has been severely curtailed.
The board says it regrets the move, which is due to a shortage of speech and language therapists nationally, and recruitment programmes are continuing. It is currently sponsoring a student who will work in Waterford and is interviewing for further sponsorships.
Ms Kirwan acknowledges the board is doing its best but believes recognition of the needs of schools like St John's is lacking at a national level.
Even if speech and language therapy is restored next year, the 17 pupils requiring the service may never make up the ground they have lost. They include an 11-year-old boy who is unable to speak but was being trained to communicate with the use of a computer.
Ms Mary Brennan, an assistant to the therapist who formerly attended the school one day a week, is trying to continue the work but is not qualified. "I need somebody to assess the children and their progress, for example, which I cannot do. Each child has individual needs and you need a qualified therapist," she says.
Even the equipment which the former therapist used, such as colour cards, was being removed, she said, making her job that much more difficult.
Speech and language therapy is not the only area in which the pupils are losing out, Ms Kirwan points out. Behavioural management therapists, a home-school liaison officer, counsellors, extra staff to assist teachers in the classroom and facilities for disruptive children are all required.
The problem facing special-needs schools, she points out, is that more children with learning disabilities are staying in mainstream education, so generally those with particular behavioural problems are attending schools like St John's. Teachers, as a result, have to take on roles for which they are not qualified.
A primary aim of the school, she says, is to build up its pupils' self-esteem. To this end it has had tangible success and last week nine of its pupils were winners in a credit union poster competition open to all schools in the area.
The Minister for Education and Science, Mr Martin, told the Dβil last week he was fully aware of the ongoing need to develop the State's special education services. The "unprecedented level of development" in the area under the present Government included the extension of the learning support (remedial) teacher service to every first and second- level school with a pupil-teacher ratio of 10:1.
The number of resource teachers in the primary sector had been increased from 104 to 1,000 since October 1998, while the number of special needs assistants had been increased from 300 to 2,500 in the same period.
Since 1999, all special schools and classes for children with disabilities had been operating at reduced pupil-teacher ratios.
