Hamer Primary School gets cardiac smart

Year Six pupils at Hamer Community Primary School after learning CPR and defibrillation skills

Pupils at Hamer Community Primary School learned the vital skills they would need to help some who has suffered a cardiac arrest in the first minutes before an ambulance arrives.

The children, aged seven to 11 were taught the recovery position as well as how to perform CPR and use a defibrillator in the first three minutes, which increases a person’s chances of survival from six per cent to over 74%.

Hiba Iqbal, a year six pupil who took in part in the training, said “It was really fun and it is important to learn how to save people’s lives and now I would be able to help someone if I needed to.”

The training courses were arranged as part of the school’s ‘Care Week’, a week of action about caring for yourself and others. All children throughout the school’s nursery, key stage one and key stage two classes took part in the week of action, learning age appropriate first aid skills such as bandaging, how to call 999 and the Heimlich manoeuvre – a technique used to remove airway obstructions when people are choking.

Debbie Wild, a higher level teaching assistant at the school, has been conducting training sessions after she took part in the council’s ‘train the trainer’ course earlier this year. She said: “Teaching the children these important life-saving skills is something we have wanted to do for years and we really pleased that our care week initiative has enabled us to do it.

"The children were buzzing all week and really took everything on board. We hope that they go home and pass on this vital information to their families and friends and if even just one child does that, then we have done our job.”

The school has also provided cardiac smart training for parents at an after school session.