Prima Cura Training delivers first aid training for schools in Greater Manchester and across the North West, on-site at your school and planned around the school day. We cover paediatric first aid for nursery and reception staff, emergency first aid for teachers, support staff and lunchtime teams, and Benedict’s Law allergy awareness training, which every state-funded school now needs for its new allergy safety policy.
School first aid isn’t a workplace course in a different building. Your casualty is far more likely to be seven than forty-seven, the incident is more likely to happen on the field than at a desk, and there may be a class of thirty watching how the adults respond. That’s what our school sessions are built around.
At a glance
| Who it’s for | Primary, secondary, special and independent schools, academy trusts, school nurseries and wraparound care |
| Courses | Emergency First Aid for Schools, Paediatric First Aid (12 hours, face-to-face or blended), Emergency Paediatric First Aid, Emergency First Aid at Work and Allergy Awareness (Benedict’s Law), plus asthma, epilepsy and diabetes courses |
| Delivery | On-site at your school: INSET days, twilight sessions or split across the week |
| Group size | Up to 12 learners per trainer on practical first aid courses |
| Awarding & accrediting bodies | First aid courses: WorkSafe or FAIB, with an Ofqual-regulated First Aid Awards (FAA) qualification through Nuco on request. Allergy Awareness: CPD accredited |
| Areas | All ten Greater Manchester boroughs, the wider North West, and England through our associate trainers |
| Price | Every course is quoted individually. Trainer travel, certificates and course materials are included |
| Reply time | Within one working day |
Is first aid training a legal requirement for schools?
Yes, for staff, and in practice for pupils too. The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 require every employer, including a school’s governing body, academy trust or proprietor, to provide adequate and appropriate first aid equipment, facilities and trained people for its employees.
The 1981 regulations only cover employees, not pupils. But the Department for Education’s guidance, First aid in schools, early years and further education, strongly recommends that schools include pupils and visitors when they assess their first aid needs, and we’d always advise it. A standard workplace first aid course doesn’t teach child or infant resuscitation, so if your first aiders are covering pupils, their training needs to cover children as well.
On top of that, three duties are set in law:
- Early years. Where a school has a nursery or reception class, the EYFS statutory framework requires at least one person with a current full paediatric first aid certificate on the premises and available whenever those children are there, and on outings.
- Pupils with medical conditions. Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 requires maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to make arrangements to support pupils with medical conditions, and the statutory guidance expects the staff who support them to be properly trained.
- Allergies. From September 2026, Benedict’s Law requires those same schools to have and publish an allergy safety policy. There’s more on this below.
What changed for schools in September 2026?
Three pieces of law and guidance changed at the start of the 2026 to 2027 school year, and all three touch first aid and pupils’ medical needs.
Benedict’s Law and allergy safety
Section 34 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Royal Assent 29 April 2026) inserted section 100A into the Children and Families Act 2014. It’s known as Benedict’s Law, after five-year-old Benedict Blythe, who died after an allergic reaction at school in 2021. From September 2026, maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units must have and publish an allergy safety policy, and must have regard to the Department for Education’s Allergy safety in schools statutory guidance, published on 6 July 2026.
The guidance expects allergy awareness training for all staff, not only first aiders, and spare adrenaline auto-injectors in school. Section 100B gives the government power to make further regulations, but no date has been set for them yet. Independent schools aren’t covered by the duty yet: the government intends to bring them in through the independent school standards.
One point catches schools out. The guidance says first aid training on its own doesn’t meet the allergy training requirement. That’s why we run Allergy Awareness (Benedict’s Law) as its own course rather than adding a few allergy slides to a first aid day. Our Benedict’s Law guide for schools covers the full detail.
Keeping children safe in education 2026
Keeping children safe in education 2026 came into force on 1 September 2026. It’s the statutory safeguarding guidance every school and college must have regard to, and the 2026 edition spells out that the EYFS framework applies to children aged 0 to 5 in school-based nurseries and reception classes. If your school has early years children, the EYFS paediatric first aid rules apply to you, not just to standalone nurseries.
The September 2026 EYFS framework
A new version of the EYFS statutory framework has been in force since 1 September 2026. The paediatric first aid criteria in Annex A haven’t changed in substance, but some paragraph numbers have moved, so check any policy that quotes them. Early years staff who gained a level 2 or level 3 qualification on or after 30 June 2016 still need a full or emergency paediatric first aid certificate within three months of starting work to count in the staff ratios.
Which first aid courses do schools book with us?
Most schools need a mix, because a reception teacher, a midday supervisor and the site manager are covering very different risks. These are the courses we deliver in schools most often.
Emergency First Aid for Schools (1 day)
Our Emergency First Aid for Schools course is for teachers, teaching assistants, midday supervisors, office staff and site teams. It covers CPR and defibrillator use, choking, bleeding and unconscious casualties, using the emergencies that actually happen in schools, involving pupils, colleagues and visitors. The CPR content follows the Resuscitation Council UK 2025 guidelines. It doesn’t replace the paediatric certificate the EYFS requires for early years children.
Paediatric First Aid (12 hours)
Full Paediatric First Aid meets the 12-hour Annex A criteria in the EYFS, so it’s the course for nursery, reception and wraparound care staff. It runs over two days at your school, and the days don’t have to be consecutive. There’s also a blended Paediatric First Aid course, with six hours of online theory before a six-hour practical day, which makes cover much easier to arrange.
Emergency Paediatric First Aid (6 hours)
Emergency Paediatric First Aid meets the EYFS emergency paediatric criteria in one full day. It suits staff who work with young children but aren’t the setting’s named full paediatric first aider.
Emergency First Aid at Work (1 day)
For staff whose first aid role is mainly adults, such as site and kitchen teams or a separate staff building, Emergency First Aid at Work is the standard workplace qualification.
Allergy Awareness (Benedict’s Law)
A half-day Allergy Awareness (Benedict’s Law) course built around the DfE’s allergy training expectations, with hands-on practice using adrenaline devices. We’re honest about the time it takes: here’s why we won’t squeeze whole-staff allergy training into 90 minutes.
Courses for pupils’ medical needs
For staff supporting individual pupils, we also deliver Asthma Awareness and Management, Epilepsy with Emergency Medication for staff who give prescribed rescue medication, and Diabetes Awareness. For your designated safeguarding team, there’s Safeguarding Children Level 2.
How many first aiders does a school need?
There’s no fixed number. The DfE guidance says there’s no rule on how many first aiders a school needs and leaves it to your first aid needs assessment, although it expects at least one in the vast majority of cases. When we help a school work it out, we look at:
- pupil numbers and age range, including any nursery or reception classes
- split sites, playing fields and how far help is from each part of the site
- higher-risk lessons such as PE, science, and design and technology
- trips, fixtures, breakfast clubs and after-school clubs
- pupils with medical conditions or allergies
- cover for first aiders who are off sick, on courses or out on a trip
If you have early years children, the EYFS rule sits on top of this: at least one full paediatric first aider on the premises whenever they’re there. Our guide to how many staff need to be first aid trained goes through the workplace side in more detail.
How do we work with Oak Learning Partnership in Bury?
We’re the preferred first aid training supplier for Oak Learning Partnership in Bury, working with staff across their primary and secondary schools. Staff have completed full Paediatric First Aid, including the blended version, Emergency Paediatric First Aid and Emergency First Aid at Work. The scenarios come straight from school life: playground falls, PE injuries and pupils with medical needs in the classroom.
When Benedict’s Law came in, we added allergy training for the partnership. We deliver it as a separate course, because the DfE guidance is clear that first aid training doesn’t meet the allergy training duty on its own. Folding it into a first aid day would have given staff a certificate and left the school with a gap in its allergy safety policy.
How do you fit first aid training around the school day?
We come to your school, so nobody has to travel and the practice happens where incidents happen: the hall, the field and the dinner queue. Schools usually book one of these:
- INSET days, for a whole-staff Allergy Awareness session or several first aid groups
- Twilight sessions after school for shorter courses and refreshers
- Split days, so the two days of Paediatric First Aid can fall in different weeks
- Blended Paediatric First Aid, with the theory done online in staff’s own time
Practical first aid courses run with up to 12 learners per trainer, so everyone gets proper hands-on time. For larger staff groups, we’ll plan how many sessions you need and spread them so classes stay covered.
Who delivers your school’s first aid training?
Your training is delivered by Stephanie Austin or one of a small group of associate trainers she selects and quality assures. Steph has 25+ years in health and social care and 15+ years as a trainer. She holds an Ofqual-regulated teaching qualification and the full TAQA assessing and quality assurance suite, and she’s a former member of the Skills for Care Personal Health Budgets Steering Committee. Every trainer holds an Enhanced DBS check.
After every course, Steph rings the school to talk through how it went, what worked and anything the staff group raised. Over 98% of learners rate their training good or excellent. Steph won Health and Wellbeing Leader at the Biz Women Awards 2025, and Prima Cura Training was runner-up in two categories at the Female Business Awards 2026. You can see how we manage quality on our Quality and Compliance page.
Where do we deliver first aid training for schools?
We’re based in Manchester and deliver in schools across all ten Greater Manchester boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan. We also cover the wider North West, and our associate trainers deliver across England.
For workplace first aid in the area, see first aid training in Manchester and first aid training in Salford, or our training courses across Greater Manchester page for health and safety and care training.
Questions schools ask before booking
Is your first aid training Ofsted approved?
Ofsted doesn’t approve first aid courses or training providers. Ofsted inspects schools and early years settings, including whether they meet the EYFS paediatric first aid requirements, and our full and emergency paediatric courses are built to the Annex A criteria in the EYFS framework.
Do all teachers need paediatric first aid?
No. Staff working with nursery or reception children need paediatric first aid under the EYFS. For most other teaching and support staff, Emergency First Aid for Schools is the better fit, and your first aid needs assessment decides the numbers.
Does first aid training cover Benedict’s Law?
No. The DfE’s Allergy safety in schools guidance says first aid training on its own doesn’t meet the allergy training requirement, so schools need separate allergy awareness training for all staff.
How long do school first aid certificates last?
First aid and paediatric first aid certificates last three years. The DfE and HSE strongly recommend a short annual refresher in between, because CPR and choking skills fade quickly if they aren’t used.
Do you work with trusts and learning partnerships across several schools?
Yes. We’re the preferred first aid training supplier for Oak Learning Partnership in Bury, and we can plan training across several schools so each site keeps the cover it needs.
Book first aid training for your school
Tell us which school or trust you’re at, roughly how many staff need training, and whether you have nursery or reception children. Steph will come back to you within one working day with the courses that fit and one all-in price. If a different course would suit you better than the one you asked about, she’ll say so.
Call: 0333 999 8783 | Email: info@primacuratraining.co.uk
Written by Stephanie Austin, Owner and Lead Trainer, Prima Cura Training | Last reviewed: November 2026 | Next review: November 2027, or sooner if national guidance changes.
This page explains first aid and allergy training requirements for schools in England as at November 2026. It doesn’t replace your school’s first aid needs assessment, medical conditions policy or allergy safety policy, or advice from your local authority, trust or health professionals. In an emergency, call 999.
