Practise skills with drills
A course gives you a skill; practice keeps it. Drills show who can really do the job under pressure, in the dark or alone.
How
- Run short, frequent drills rather than one big one. Education research finds spacing practice across sessions and actively recalling what was learned improves long-term retention compared with one session (AERO).
- Monthly 15-minute drills, rotating: CPR on a manikin, tourniquet on a limb, extinguisher PASS, shutting down the power system, treating a bucket of water, starting the generator, radio check-in.
- Use a CPR manikin with feedback on compression rate and depth if you can; the American Heart Association requires such feedback devices in its adult CPR courses because instructors cannot judge quality by eye.
- Run scenario drills: a burst pipe at night, a cut from a chainsaw, a chimney fire. Score each person and note gaps.
- Fold skill drills into the annual weekend switch-off (continuity-24) and family emergency drills (safety-24, medical-9).
- After each drill, update the skills grid and the plan.
Safety: Use training kit, not live hazards. Never practise on live electrics or with real fire indoors.
Do these first
Sources
- Spacing and retrieval practice guide. Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), accessed 2026-11
- Directive: required use of CPR feedback devices in adult CPR courses. American Heart Association, accessed 2026-11
- Keeping Bystanders Active: Resuscitating Resuscitation Skills (Maass et al., 2019). Frontiers in Public Health, accessed 2026-11