Teacher Tapp surveys secondary teachers about vaping in schools.
Despite it being illegal to sell vapes to under 18s (or to buy vapes for under 18s), it hasn’t stopped students getting hold of them. In fact, ‘children are nine times more likely to vape than adults’ and an estimated 15 million ’13-15 year olds use e-cigarettes’.
Teacher Tapp, an educational research platform that surveys teachers daily has shared its findings (commissioned by the BBC) on vaping in UK secondary schools. It also compared this October 2025 data with results on this topic since 2022. It found that 52% of teachers said vaping is a problem in secondary schools in 2025 (11% strongly agree, 41% agree).
While this is a decrease from previous years (74% in 2024, 72% in 2023, 64% in 2022), more than half of secondary teachers are still identifying this as an issue. The number of students caught vaping has also lowered, with 82% of teachers never catching a student vaping (since the start of this half-term) compared to 76% in 2024. 8% of teachers caught students vaping once, 4% caught them twice and 6% caught them three times or more; in 2024 this was 10%, 5% and 9% respectively.
The survey also shares the actions schools have taken in response to their most recent vaping incidents. The most common action was confiscation (73%), followed by parents contacted (66%) and then the student being put into detention or isolation (47%) – although, of course, schools may have taken more than one of these actions for the incident, e.g., confiscated the vape, spoke to parents and gave the student a detention.
The popularity of vape/smoking deterrent measures was also included, which found, for example, 23% of schools have installed vape detectors. These measures can be expensive, with a school in this BBC article paying £3,000 for three vape detectors.
Described as a ‘public health emergency’ the Government has said it is ‘taking urgent action on a worrying rise in youth vaping’.
References
- BBC – ‘Schools want help in ‘lonely battle’ against vapes’
- Teacher Tapp – Vaping in schools
Accessed 13 January 2026.
Accessed 13 January 2026.
