Rural Waimate school boasts 400,000th pupil to learn emergency skills
Waituna Creek School student Poppy Wilce, 6, received a certificate for becoming the 400,000th pupil through the ASB St John in School programme.
The 400,000th pupil in a New Zealand-wide initiative to teach emergency skills to children hails from a rural South Canterbury school.
Poppy Wilce, 6, became the ASB St John in School's 400,000th participant at 12.40pm on Monday, when she and her nine classmates from Waituna Creek School in the Waimate District went through basic skills for first aid and responding to a crisis with St John staff.
"It was cool," Poppy said.
St John in School South Island manager David Carswell, left, and ASB premium manager Richard Moore, along with Waituna Creek School student Poppy Wilce, 6, who was the 400,000th pupil to go through the ASB St John in School programme.
School principal Tiffany Ottley said the programme was especially beneficial to children in rural areas such as the 42 pupils in her school's care.
"I'm thinking about the farm situation these children are in every day. We know there are a lot of accidents that happen in our district," Ottley said.
Distance to the main centre and ambulance services also made the skills important to the school's kids - with Poppy living the furthest from Waimate, about 20 minutes away.
Ottley said the kids "thoroughly enjoyed" the programme, which had been coming to the school for three years.
"Educating them at this young age will help them carry the skills into their adulthood," she said.
"If it saves one life it's done what it's needed to do."
St John in School South Island manager David Carswell said the fact the programme was interactive resonated with the country's kids.
"We'll show them how it works and what it looks like, and they try it on each other," Carswell said.
"The idea of the programme is to give the kids really simple skills they can apply to day-to-day life. It's skill sets they don't necessarily learn in other places."
Carswell said "good dinner talk" came out of the programme - which is taught over a session lasting 45 minutes, an hour, or an hour and a half depending on the pupils' ages - when the children returned home.
"The parents are engaging with it too.
"It's helping to bring awareness to the first aid world."
Another effect of the programme was preschoolers and other young children were overcoming their fear of ambulances.
"They're scared because they don't know what's inside."
Familiarising kids with the vehicle helped to dispel their worries, just as teaching emergency skills made calls to 111 easier for kids, he said.
St John gets over 50 111 emergency calls from children each month to say a parent or loved one has fallen, is unconscious, or is having convulsions.
The programme was revamped in 2014 to become more interactive, and was previously called Safe Kids for 12 years.
- Stuff
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