First aid across borders Erasmus Project

Project Title

First aid across borders

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Natural sciences

Project Summary

The medical service is increasingly becoming important in schools. Injuries during breaks or sports lessons have been part of every day school life for a long time. Furthermore, the number of pupils who are suffering from various diseases during childhood and adolescence significantly increased in the last years. Wrong nutrition and too little exercise are the biggest causes of these diseases. Again and again we observe injuries due to a lack of coordination and mobility of the pupils at our school. Many of our students come to school with a pre-existing illness, which breaks out in the classroom, so that first aid is often necessary. Similar cases have been observed at our partner school. In order to not only provide sufficient aid, but also to comply with the legal obligations to provide first aid, a medical service is essential in schools as large as the Willy-Brandt Gesamtschule or the Atatürk Ortaokulu. In the course of the project we extended our medical service at Willy-Brandt Gesamtschule and founded as well as established one at the Atatürk Ortaokulu. Due to the steadily increasing number of injuries and illnesses, awkwardness and insecurity, we have decided to inform a lot of students about the topic. Unfortunately, a phenomenon that is common among children and adolescents is the gaping at an accident, and even videos are often shot. At our schools, such misconduct can eventually be prevented by providing the students with the information mentioned.At the beginning of the project, two school medics per class were trained at Willy-Brandt-Gesamtschule in forms six to nine. Afterwards, the trained school medics went to Turkey together with a first aid instructor, in order to train two school medics in forms five to eight at Atatürk Ortaokulu. Since the training, the school medics of both schools organize schedule their meetings by themselves. They meet twice a week and practise first aid measures, create service plans, share information about injuries via skype, and talk about their duties during breaks, sports festivals, blood drives etc. In order to also sensitize other students for first aid, the trained school medics are deployed as multiplicators in the subjects biology and science. They provide their knowledge about first aid by means of videos and materials they have established themselves in German and Turkish. These can be used by the the German Red Cross, the Turkish Kizilay and also other schools. In the course of the project, the topics heart attack, stroke, dermal injuries and fractures were integrated into the obligatory topics of biology and science, as well as embedded in their curricula. Both studies and the results of PISA show that many students tend to lose interest in science. According to Gardner, science is a subject that students initially like, but gradually becomes more unpopular for students, so that they finally drop it (Gardner, 1987, p.15). At Willy-Brandt-Gesamtschule and Atatürk Ortaokulu, interest in the subject of science is constantly rising. Because of connecting obligatory issues with first aid (cf. above), students easier gain access to more abstract and complex topics and are more willing to learn. In order to fascinate students with the anatomy and physiology of the organ system and to build up a network of knowledge, a couple of excursions took part. At the hospital museum in Bielefeld, the students gained insight into an exemplary cardiac catherization and were informed about Polio and the so-called iron lung. Visiting several dripstone caves made the students familiar with their structure, their mixture of gases in the interior and their meaning as a health resort for certain diseases. To sum up, one can say that establishing medical service and a first aid room at a Turkish school is highly innovative. For both, the Turkish as well as the German school, the connection of first aid with curricula is something completely new. With our project, we hope to inspire other schools on a local or regional level respectively, and to make them adapt first aid to their curricula in a obligatory manner.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 60220 Eur

Project Coordinator

Willy-Brandt-Gesamtschule Bergkamen & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Mersin Silifke Atatürk Ortaokulu