UK schools installing vape sensors in bid to break pupil habits
Crackdown on bathroom break vaping as schools adopt sensors
An increasing number of schools up and down the country are installing “vape sensors” in bids to crack down on students vaping during bathroom breaks.
Parents and teachers nationwide have hit out at the companies manufacturing vapes and accused them of packaging the product to target teenagers and children as the habit becomes a growing issue in schools.
In a survey carried out last year by Teacher Tapp, 66 per cent of UK teachers said they had caught pupils vaping or with vaping equipment on school grounds.
Around 20 per cent of teachers said the youngest pupil caught was under the age of 12.
An increasing number of schools around the UK are installing vape sensors in bathroom areas, which are designed to detect the presence of small particles released when vaping occurs.
St Joseph’s RC High School, in Horwich, Greater Manchester installed sensors in toilets last year following three instances of pupils collapsing after using THC vapes. The sensors were activated 112 times in a day at first, but cases have since dropped.
This month, the Royal High School in Edinburgh became one of the first schools north of the border to install vape detectors.
The school spent around £1,000 to install the detectors in three of its main toilets.
Headteacher Pauline Walker told BBC Scotland News: “We want to send a message loud and clear. Vaping is not acceptable. We will not permit it. We will not promote it.”
Other schools around the country, such as Baxter College in Kidderminster, are pairing vaping sensors with surveillance cameras, which can capture images of offending students as they leave bathrooms.
Ashley Crittenden, chair of the Association of Kent Headteachers, said vape sensors could be an effective tool for schools in the war against vaping rather than resorting to suspending students.
She 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.
Figures from the Department of Health and Social Care show the number of children using vapes has tripled in the last three years.
Last week the government published the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born from 2009 onwards, and bring in on-the-spot fines for retailers caught selling to under-18s. Measures will also be introduced to reduce the appeal of vaping products, including restricting the use of colourful packaging and variety of flavours.