Vaping parent information

Dear parent / carer

I am writing to you as we have several students in the older classes (Weston and Seymour) who vape.

As we know students do vape, we have explored ways of regulating this during the school day, but following discussion with the trust, there cannot be vaping during the school hours in any way as vaping is essentially illegal.

‘It is illegal to sell nicotine vaping products to anyone under 18 or for adults to buy them on behalf of under-18s.’

We cannot condone or encourage vaping in school, and if a child vapes during school hours, we will suspend them for the remainder of the day.

The site is quite small, and students often need some space to regulate offsite. We build in short walks into the timetable of the day, but there cannot be any vaping on these walks.

It is helpful if students do not bring in vapes and your support with this would be appreciated.

We will, be working with the substance abuse service (SAS) this term who work with students around addictions including vaping.

We will continue to collect phones in the morning and again if a child refuses to do this, they will be taken home to deposit the phone with you and then return to site. We will also ask for vapes.

Thank you for your support and understanding on this. We know that some of our students will find this really hard especially if they are vaping to avoid other forms of smoking.

Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss this further.

Best wishes,
Lis Jolley
Principal

What are the parenting advice for vaping?

The greatest tool parents have to keep their kids from vaping is open communication. Talk with your kids about the dangers of vaping and emphasize that we don't yet know just how bad it might be. Make sure that they know e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which can have lasting effects on their brain and behavior.

Talk to your teen about how they will manage cravings and temptation if they are around peers who vape. Help them build a list of actions and activities they can use to distract themselves when cravings strike. The quitSTART app has games and challenges to help people quit.