Friday 30 November 2007

Heartstart Training



I attended the second part of a training course this afternoon and gained Instructor status with Heartstart. Heartstart is an initiative coordinated by the British Heart Foundation to teach members of the public what to do in a life threatening emergency: simple skills that can save lives. At Liberton High we intend to train all of our S5 students before Christmas and then to extend the programme throughout the entire school in 2008. Research carried out in other countries has shown that a significant number of lives can be saved, following a heart attack, by teaching members of the public the basics of first aid. Pupils will be trained to become 'teachers' in this initiative.

I am grateful to Rachel Meighan (PT Guidance) for generating interest in this initiative and agreeing to coordinate the development of the programme. Thanks also to Bryan Finlay (Heartstart), a former pupil of mine from my Beeslack days, for all his support in bringing this programme to life. Bryan, apologies for any lasting damage I did with the Van de Graaf as your Physics teacher - think of it as an early introduction to defibrillation!

5 comments:

olliebray said...

This is great news and a really worthwhile initiative. In a past life I set up one of the first Heartstart UK Schemes (outside of London) on the South Coast of England. I am pleased to say that 12 years later the scheme is still moving from strength to strength.

We also have Heartstart at Musselburgh, although we mainly deliver the programme with our Community Sports Leaders. We also train a group of S6 students each year who work with the Standard Grade PE classes to deliver the training – However, I’m keen to try and roll out the training to the rest of the school. Ideally I would like the training completed in S1, S3 and S6 (in S6 you have an option to become a trainer and work in the primaries on ‘Breadth of Life Scheme’.

I will be following your progress on this initiative with real interest.

See you soon. Ollie

Unknown said...

Great to see you have joined out online community DJ.

I am looking forward to reading your posts.

Tess :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi Ollie - great to hear from you. We are also intending to roll out to our cluster schools along similar lines to yourselves at Musselburgh. We are also looking at how we can roll out the programme and involve parents as part of this initiative. It will be useful to share experiences on our efforts to widen the scheme beyond our school.

Anonymous said...

Hi Tess - great to hear from you. I look forward to sharing experiences with you.

olliebray said...

Hi Donald, I really like your idea of involving parents.