Pupils and staff at Oakdale Junior School are going to be shown how to save lives with a new defibrillator – funded by parents.

Danny Hyde, from Emergency First Aid Ltd, will be presenting the equipment to the school, in Oakdale Road, South Woodford, on Friday.

The full defibrillator kit costs £850 and was raised by Mr Hyde, with donations from Junior School and Senior School children’s parents.

Teachers also took part in a 60 mile cycle, a gruelling hike up Pen y Fan mountain in south Wales and an open water swim to raise money for the life saving equipment.

Mr Hyde told the Recorder: “We will be training staff and showing children how to use the defibrillator.

“We have already given basic life support training to teachers and also Year 6 pupils.”

Dawn Hallybone, Oakdale Junior School deputy headteacher, said the equipment would serve the whole of the local area.

She continued: “Although based at the Junior School, we will ensure that the defibrillator is available to our local community in an emergency.”

Mrs Hallybone explained that “sadly 270 children die in the UK per year after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest at school”.

According to Mr Hyde if a defibrillator is used and effective CPR is performed within three to five minutes of the incident, survival chances increase from three per cent to 74pc – “which is incredible”, Mrs Hallybone added.

This is the third defibrillator which Emergency First Aid Ltd, based in Loughton, has installed in a school this year.