Firefighters have used their expertise to help children at Upton Juniors in Broadstairs develop life-saving skills.

Members of Kent Fire and Rescue Service joined Year 6 pupils to discuss and demonstrate essential CPR - Cardiopulmonary resuscitation - techniques.

After talking through the importance of this life-saving practice, each child was given the opportunity to perform CPR on a dummy.

Pupils administered CPR for 30 seconds, using the consistent repetitive beat of the song Baby Shark by Pink Fong to ensure they were achieving the necessary compression rate. The song has a tempo of 115 beats per minute to act as a metronome.

As part of the workshop session they also learned how to place someone in the recovery position.

Head of Year 6 Katie Vary said: “This was a wonderful opportunity to work alongside Kent Fire and Rescue Service to equip our Year 6 pupils with invaluable, potentially life-saving, skills.

“The excellent engagement from our pupils exemplified the power of linking with outside agencies to enrich our curriculum at Upton.”

The sessions were linked to the school’s First Aid awareness as part of the Personal Social Health and Economic Education programme (PSHE).

PCR : Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation, or mouth to mouth in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person who is suffering cardiac arrest.

Upton Junior School is part of the Viking Academy Trust with Chilton Primary School and Ramsgate Arts Primary School.

*For more information contact Head of School Darci Arthur on 01843 861393.