Hucknall school pupils are fundraising superstars

Pupils at Hillside Primary and Nursery School originally set themselves a target of £1,000 to buy the new defibrillator.

But with that target already reached, they are now going for another £1,000 to help either buy a device for another school or help a charity

The school decided to raise funds for a new defibrillator in the community after finding out that the nearest one to the school is around seven minutes drive away – and that ever minute needed to get to a defibrillator decreases someone’s survival chances by 10 per cent,

The defibrillator is intended to be open to everyone in the public as well as the school.

Christina Patterson, a year six teacher at the school, said: "We have been studying the heart this half-term and we wanted the children to have a goal to work towards, especially in year six as it’s their last year at Hillside and this would be a legacy to leave behind.

"So we’ve been learning about the heart and why defibrillators are so important and we researched our area and found there we none nearby, so we decided to fundraise to get one installed outside of the school gates so that the whole community could benefit from it, as well as the school community.

"The kids have led the whole thing with events like a non-uniform day, a sports day, guess the name of the teddy bear, guess how many sweets in the jar and they’ve put a raffle together.

"We also spent time writing to local businesses, trying persuade them through our writing that this would be a good cause to donate to through our JustGiving page.

"And it’s been really successful, we’ve already raised more than £1,000 in a few weeks and that was our initial target, so we’re going to keep going to try and buy one for another local primary school or donate to another heart foundation.

"The one we’ve raised the money for will be place outside our school and we placed our order in the last week so hopefully it will be up in the next few weeks.

"We were going to put it in the school but then we thought, what if the school was closed and people couldn’t get access to it, so we’re putting outside the school instead.”

The pupils have also had support and help from Nottinghamshire charity Leon’s Legacy, which raises money to put defibrillators in schools and teach people CPR

Christina continued: “Leon’s Legacy came into school and trained all the children in CPR and they gave them a demonstration in how to use the defibrillator too.

"The kids have been amazing, they’ve really got into this and been so confident and enthusiastic about it.”