The impact of e-cigarette use in schools in UK

As a government consultation on measures to tackle youth vaping comes to an end, BBC South East speaks to head teachers, teaching staff and students to find out the impact e-cigarettes are having in schools.

“You find them asking to go out of the lessons to go into the toilets,” said Sade Afolabi, a teacher in Surrey, and spokeswoman for the NASUWT teaching union.

“It is damaging because when you quantify how much time is lost it’s quite a big loss to learning,” she added.

A recent survey by the anti-smoking group ASH found that 20.5% of children aged 11 to 17 had tried vaping, up from 15.8% in 2022.

Many schools have introduced vape alarms to detect whether pupils are using electronic cigarettes in the toilets.

Ashley Crittenden, chair of the Association of Kent Headteachers, said: “It’s about schools having really stringent policies in place, some schools do now have vape alarms and I think they can be effective.

“Whilst suspensions can be an effective tool with managing behaviour, actually it’s about changing people’s mindsets, changing people’s behaviours and whilst young people can get hold of vapes very easily, I think it does come down to the government making some really tough decisions” she added.

Meanwhile, the government has outlined plans to tax vapes and tighten restrictions to curb vaping in young people.

Proposals being considered include:

VAT is already applied to e-cigarettes but the introduction of a new tax has also been also proposed, to make vapes more expensive.

A group of teenagers at a youth club in East Sussex said vaping had become more popular among their age group.

Sapphire, 13, said: “Everyone will be puffing on their vapes all the time.

“You’ll see it everywhere, if you go into the girls’ toilets, it will just be, like, smoke everywhere.”

Oskar, also 13, said: “I see people vaping every day, everywhere, school, home.”

And 13-year-old Kepa added: “They spray deodorant in the toilet to get rid of the smell.”

Asked how young they had seen children vaping, Cailyn, 15, said: “Probably, like, year sevens.”

Caroline Barlow, a head teacher in East Sussex, says: “It is a challenge all schools are facing.”

She said head teachers had told her of “greater occurrences of students maybe seeking to find ways out of lessons, or to find ways in breaks and lunchtimes to access their vapes”.

She added: “They might be looking to go to the toilet or they might be looking to take time out of lessons, because they have reached a point of addiction.”

She said she backed measures being considered by the government.

“The marketing should be similar to tobacco, out of sight, plain packaging, removed from purchase for young people completely,” she said.

Industry representatives said they did not condone targeting children and backed punitive action against those that did.

Last week, the UK’s leading vape brand Elfbar and its sister brand Lost Mary said they would drop dessert and soft drink flavours, which have been criticised for appealing to children.

But UK Vaping Industry Association boss John Dunne said: “Smokers trying to quit rely on disposable vapes, and to ban them could potentially have fatal consequences.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We know there’s been a surge in youth vaping and this government is taking the long-term health decisions to protect our children and reverse this trend.

“That’s why we’ve consulted on ways to reduce the appeal and availability of vapes to young people – including by reducing the number of flavours and colours of vapes available, regulating how vapes are displayed in shops to keep them out of sight for children, and restricting the sale of disposable vapes.”