You will have to get a standard Win XP version from the school. I would contact the school and let them know the copy they gave you was 64bit or otherwise give the laptop to them as is and let them install windows.

Thanks to all those who have offered advice.....I now know considerably more than when I started the topic!
Update.....
The school principal is confident about finding a Winx32 installation.....
I'm going to try the ReactOS on one of the units (I'll report in another topic when I have some results).....
What goes around comes around - I've been given yet another unit that's running Win'98 and I'm going to set this up for my grand-daughter (3y/o) to use when she's here.....you may soon find another topic about networking to my computer and its WinXP.
Would someone let me know if I now need to mark this topic as 'answered'.
Thanks again. Regards, ansell.

Hi ansell - marked as answered for you.