Having supported St Joseph’s Roman Catholic High School, in Horwich, Bolton we are reaching out to more schools across Greater Manchester to help them to deal with vaping among their students.
While many schools are reticent about the issue, Tony McCabe, Headteacher at St Joseph’s RC High School has spoken to media to warn others about the danger of vaping. He has also explained how the school has tackled vaping among its students, which includes installing HALO Smart Sensors supplied by Ecl-ips.
The school contacted us following a growing concern over the use of vapes by students and the health impacts they posed. In one incident several students had needed hospital treatment after using contaminated vapes, which included one child who stopped breathing for a period of time.
He said: “There is a problem nationally. It’s a new pandemic that will grow unless we make enough noise… to make sure that young people are not at the centre of that market.”
The headteacher has been making noise by telling a wide range of media outlets, including national press and broadcast channels, about the school’s actions to tackle vaping amongst its students. This approach also attracted the attention of South Korean media and the school recently hosted a television crew from the country as reported by the Bolton News.
When the vape detectors were initially installed at St Joseph’s they were activated 112 times within the first day. This rate has now vastly reduced, but it has not been eliminated. The school is finding that there are 11-year-olds starting at the school who already have a vape addiction.
Mr McCabe said, “It still surprises me that young people know there’s a vape sensor in our toilet cubicles, they know they’re going to be picked up for it, and yet they still do it.”
Unlike some other schools St Joseph’s has chosen not to punish students that they find vaping but instead offers ongoing support to students and their families to educate them about the dangers of vaping and to combat the addiction.
The Halo Smart Sensor can detect all forms of vaping, including when it is being masked by aerosols, as well as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is found in cannabis. St Joseph’s has now installed 24 smart sensors in their school toilets and use the HALO cloud dashboard to help manage the alerts. This also provides them with an easy-to access history of the alerts set off over time.
Mr McCabe added “Our sensors are really smart; they can measure whether …the vape has been laced with THC. We’ve picked up …quite a few vapes that seem to have traces of THC.”
We supply HALO Smart Sensors across the country. We pre-stage the device, ensuring the latest firmware is up to date and that all the requirements for detection are set up correctly. Then we can train and support customers remotely if required.
If you want to know more about how we can help schools tackle vaping read our guide: https://ecl-ips.com/blog/vaping-in-schools-a-guide-to-the-problem-and-solving-it/ and contact us.