During Term 4 we were incredibly lucky to welcome the Community Lifesavers to King Ethelbert School to deliver CPR and defibrillator training to all Year 7 students.
James Cant, the CEO of the Resuscitation Council UK said ‘Did you know that 1 in 10 people in the UK survive a cardiac arrest out-of-hospital? The chance of survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest can be increased two-to-threefold by the immediate provision of bystander CPR and defibrillation’. As a result of this, the Community Lifesavers are committed to providing life saving skills to young people and want to turn potential bystanders into life savers.
Both CPR and AED training are critical to saving lives. CPR is the procedure to keep the blood pumping when the heart stops, while the AED is a machine that will attempt to get the heart started again after it stops. Students in year 7 got to experience in-depth training delivered by the professionals from Community Lifesavers and then got to put these newly learnt skills to the test on CPR manikins. Students also got to practise using defibrillators and thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on experience!
Mia Turner in 7SGM said ‘I really enjoyed that we got to practise using defibrillators and doing CPR on a manikin. I really wanted to get 100% on the CPR but I got 99% which I am still proud of. I now feel more confident with what to do if I ever find myself needing to give CPR or using a defibrillator’.
As part of the DfE's commitment to supply schools with defibrillators, we received a new defibrillator last week which has been installed in the entrance of the sports block. This is in addition to the device found in our main reception. As a school, we are committed to ensuring we are kitted with the essentials we need to potentially save a life.
I would like to say a huge thank you to the volunteers from Community Lifesavers for their incredible work with our students and for turning them into life savers!
Mrs Pellegrini
