The Presentation Secondary School in Listowel is the first school in Kerry to receive the award

A total of seven secondary schools have recently been presented with a Special Recognition Award from the Irish Heart Foundation for training all of their students in the lifesaving skill of CPR.

The Presentation Secondary School in Listowel, Co Kerry, has become the first school in Kerry to receive the award, which recognises schools for remarkable efforts in CPR promotion and training.

The Special Recognition awards are given annually as part of the Irish Heart Foundation’s CPR 4 Schools programme, which 73 per cent of post-primary schools in Ireland are currently trained in.

The Irish Heart Foundation is committed to creating a generation of life savers by training post-primary school students around the country to perform CPR, use an AED in cardiac emergencies and respond when someone is choking.

To date, 1,826 teachers in 529 post primary schools around the country have taken part in the CPR 4 Schools programme and learned how to deliver CPR, giving the programme a reach of over 250,000 post primary school students.

The following schools received an Irish Heart Foundation Special Recognition Award:

• Presentation Secondary School, Loughboy, Kilkenny
• Ardgillan Community College, Balbriggan, Dublin
• Presentation Secondary School, Listowel, Kerry
• Newpark Comprehensive School, Blackrock, Dublin
• The Royal and Prior Comprehensive School, Raphoe, Co Donegal
• Duiske College, Graiguenamanagh, Kilkenny
• St Peter’s College, Dunboyne, Meath

Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, Co Dublin, provided CPR skills through the CPR 4 Schools programme to 861 students and 15 staff over a period of five weeks.

According to Newpark Comprehensive, “We planned the training to coincide with relevant curriculum material for science and biology. We extended this to Life skills classes in Senior Cycle. We feel that the initiative is a crucial life skill and has now created student leaders who are taking their skills into their own communities. We have raised awareness and highlighted the important of recognising signs and symptoms early and have empowered students to feel competent to react to a cardiac arrest.”

Commenting Laura Hickey, Children and Young People Programme Manager with the Irish Heart Foundation said, “We are delighted to announce the winners for this year’s Special Recognition Awards. The CPR 4 Schools award recognises the outstanding achievements of schools who’ve provided the lifesaving skill of CPR to all their students. Every day in Ireland people die from a cardiac arrest. Schools are an ideal setting for young people to learn CPR and help reduce the number of deaths from cardiac arrest.

“Many of the schools across Ireland continued to run the CPR 4 Schools training during the Covid-19 pandemic. Today we would like to say a special thank you to each of these schools. Their incredible dedication in these challenging times will continue to save lives, sadly cardiac arrests don’t stop for Covid-19 and this skill is important now more than ever.”

For more information on the Irish Heart Foundation’s CPR 4 Schools Programme please see here.