Asked by: Guto Bebb (Independent - Aberconwy)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to ensure that more young people are trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools can choose whether to cover this topic as part of their curriculum. The non-statutory framework for Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education produced by the PSHE Association provides a context for teaching young people about emergency lifesaving skills (ELS) and resuscitation.
At primary level, pupils can learn about basic emergency procedures and where to get help, and at secondary level they can develop the skills to cope with emergency situations that require basic first aid procedures, including resuscitation techniques.
The Department for Education is encouraging schools to purchase defibrillators as part of their first aid equipment, and is currently working in partnership with the Department of Health and stakeholders to identify a supplier of defibrillators at a competitive price. An announcement is expected in early December.
Asked by: Guto Bebb (Independent - Aberconwy)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department takes to promote the teaching of water safety in schools.
Answered by Edward Timpson
In the new national curriculum, which comes into force from September 2014, swimming and water safety remain compulsory in the programme of study for physical education (PE) at primary level. We are sending a clear message to schools that swimming and water safety are essential: no other activities are specified requirements in the PE curriculum. The programme of study for PE is available online here:
The Department for Education is providing over £450million of ring-fenced funding across the academic years 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 to go directly to primary schools, to be spent on the improvement of PE and sport. Headteachers are best placed to decide how the funding should be used and, using the funding, they can provide additional training and instruction in swimming and water safety (over and above the requirements of the national curriculum) if they choose.
There are a range of resources to help schools provide high-quality teaching, including from organisations such as the Amateur Swimming Association and from the Royal Lifesaving Society.