Year 6 were very fortunate this week to receive first aid training from a local charity which is run by Daniel Osborne, a teacher at Dawlish College. Daniel set up Jay's Aim after the death of his younger brother from a sudden cardiac arrest at just 28 years of age.

Jay's Aim is a charity which aims to develop awareness of cardiac arrest in young people and their aim is to educate people through offering CPR training.

Children learnt the difference between a cardiac arrest and a heart attack. (CPR is required after a cardiac arrest as the electrical rhythms in the heart have been interrupted.) In both instances the children were told to ring 999 and explain symptoms. They then learnt how to give CPR- first practising giving chest compressions (arms straight, hands linked or overlapping, pushing down 5-6cm onto the chest through your hands) and then learning rescue breaths. The children delivered 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths and kept this sequence going- everyone realised that actually delivering CPR is really hard work. 

The children also learnt how to use a defibrillator and we discussed the locations of these in Exminster. We also found how you access the code to the defibrillator box and used a mock- defibrillator to administer treatment. (Pearse and Ollie were brilliant at this even though neither of them had ever used this type of equipment before.)

We were delighted with the calm, mature and responsible way in which our Year 6 children took part in this key life skill training and we look forward to Jay's Aims second visit in April where those children who attended the London visit will also be trained.

If you would like further information about the charity here is the link to their website: https://www.jaysaim.co.uk/