Education Bill

Memorandum submitted by Parish CE School (E 71)

1. Parish CE Primary is a primary in St Helens in Merseyside. We decided to teach Emergency Life Support (ELS) Skills in our school because children are not apprehensive over putting into practice things that they learn.

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. Parish teaches ELS as part of the British Heart Foundation Heart start training scheme.

4. Parish currently teaches ELS to 75 plus children aged 7-11 per year.

5. They are taught ELS for 24 hours per year as part of our extended schools provision.

6. Parish believes that ELS should be made a compulsory part of the National Curriculum in England because knowing basic first aid can save lives. Children unlike adults will put what they have learnt into practice without hesitating, they absorb information easier than adults do and they are often more willing to learn new skills as well. We would like to encourage the Committee to amend the Education Bill to make this possible.

7. The children I have taught ELS to over the past 3 years have thoroughly enjoyed the training, a lot of them can relate to times when they could have used the skills in the past. They feel confident about what they have learnt and at school we then use their knowledge and provide a demonstration for the younger children on what they have learnt.

8. Children I have taught at my school have used their skills. A child this term had to call 999 for a family member having an Asthma attack, another child helped their mum to treat a bleed on a younger sibling and many of them come to me saying that they have given advice to others on how to treat other people with a first aid problem.

9. The teachers love to stay in on our ELS lessons, they are always pleased at how their children have reacted in class, feedback over the following few days is good and most of the time they will comment on the fact that it had helped them to remember first aid skills they have been taught or in some cases correct things they had been taught 10-15 years ago.

10. The Heart start package is very child friendly and all adults I have dealt with in the past have been very impressed with the training and pleased that children are now getting the chance to learn these very essential skills in school. Lets face it 99% won’t get this opportunity elsewhere.

March 2011