Schoolgirl, 11, training her peers in first aid

Rebecca is leading the way in Perthshire

A Perthshire schoolgirl who taught fellow pupils essential lifesaving skills has encouraged youngsters to learn CPR.

Rebecca Morrison, 11, held CPR lessons at Kilgraston School in Bridge of Earn last year in an effort to give young people “confidence” to respond in an emergency.

After the school decided to install a defibrillator, Rebecca wanted to make sure her classmates could save a life.

As a youth ambassador for the Order of St John’s, she has become regularly involved in the Perth and Kinross area over the last few years and ran training sessions at local community groups.

Rebecca helped the school raise money for the defibrillator after learning how the machine’s therapeutic shock can save someone in a life threatening condition.

Her efforts began at the age of 10, when she held her first fundraisers for St John’s, raising more than £600 after cutting off her hair for charity.

She has since become one of the youngest volunteers for St John’s across the whole of the UK and has earned high praise from the Prior on a number of occasions.

Her voluntary work equipped her with the lifesaving skills to teach first aid to junior-year students at school, alongside her mother Susan Morrison, who is a registered CPR trainer and former acute coronary care nurse.

Rebecca said: “I think everyone should be able to practice first aid regularly because that way people are confident in the skills they have learned, rather than maybe learning it once a year.

“My friends at school are shocked when I tell them the facts about CPR and how important it is but once they knew how easy learning is they were not scared to do it.

“They were worried about something happening where they would need to use it but I told them the best thing you can do in that situation is try because you could save someone’s life – that’s all that matters at the end of the day.”

Learning first aid can be a daunting experience for young people, but Rebecca has invented clever techniques to engage her peers in CPR.

In an attempt to make the sessions more fun and informative for her school colleagues, the quick-thinker taught pupils to sing along to Nelly the Elephant while doing compressions.

Rebecca Morrison has become one of the youngest volunteers for St John’s.