Education Bill

Memorandum submitted by Archbishop Ilsley CTC (E 37)

1. Archbishop Ilsley Catholic Technology College is a secondary school in Birmingham in the West Midlands. We decided to teach Emergency Life Support (ELS) Skills in our school because one of our parents died suddenly from a heart attack at home in front of his family and felt this could be something positive to come from this tragedy .

2. ELS skills are the set of actions needed to keep someone alive until professional help arrives. They include performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), dealing with choking, serious bleeding and helping someone that may be having a heart attack.

3. Archbishop Ilsley CTC teaches ELS as part of the British Heart Foundation Heartstart training scheme.

4. Archbishop Ilsley CTC currently teaches ELS to 120 children aged 11-18 per year.

5. They are taught ELS for 25-30 hours per year as part of Health and Social Care and Physical Education.

6. Archbishop Ilsley CTC believes that ELS should be made a compulsory part of the National Curriculum in England because Heart Disease is one of the biggest killers in our country and feel that all young people should have at least a basic knowledge of what to do in an emergency situation. We would like to encourage the Committee to amend the Education Bill to make this possible.

7. Many of the students who are involved in this training are from lower ability groups, that can be difficult to engage; we ask for evaluations from them at the end of the course and got responses like ‘ I feel able/confident that I could now help in an emergency situation

‘ Can we do the course again?’

8. Groups of students that are on the ASDAN system have benefited from going on this course, using the course as a springboard onto other training such as Health and Social care.

9. At the beginning of the academic year, 83 members of the teaching and support staff at this school took part in Heartstart training supported by local paramedics and the community resuscitation officer. 12 members did further AED training and we now have 2 AED difibs on the school site.

March 2011