Has anyone got any ideas on how to prevent students from smoking at schools? Have you come across any system or methods that worked for you as a student/pupil (or you as a teacher) and helped to reduce the problem? We're (my school) trying to come up with a scheme to stop them smoking in the toilets and/or in the schoolyard.
Thanks

Policing the students seems to work best.  I remember back at my highschool, there was a designated smoking area outside...anyone caught smoking in a different area was given detentions, or had a priveledge removed (example: first penalty - detention, second penalty - not allowed to participate in an activity like sports teams or clubs, third penalty - suspension).  If all the students have to smoke in one area, it is much easier for a teacher to patrol - to make sure the students there are of a legal age to smoke (smoking age is 18 in Canada btw).

As for the smoking in bathrooms...make sure that all bathrooms have working smoke detectors...then alarms will go off when students smoke in there. 

You could also start a club to help them quit smoking - offering little prizes the longer they go without smoking.

Hope this helps some,

-spoon

thanks Spoon for your ideas. Some of them might actually work but i am rather sure the club wouldn't make any sense as they smoke to be cool. It's not an addiction (yet).

Anyway, thanks a lot - i am putting it all down and will present ideas when all teachers meet up for a conference next month.

Jim

Yep... That oughta do it... Zero tolerance policy... Give them one specific area where they can smoke and act zero tolerance if you catch them smoking outside that area.

And place some mansized posters with pictures blackened of teeth, carcenous lungs and rotten throats in the area where they ARE allowed to smoke... So that they can clearly identify the smoker's area... That'll teach em

Show them some real footage of someone who has had half of there face removed, or throat, or jaws, because they had cancer from smoking. Or let them watch a video of someone dying from lung cancer (had a real good friend die that way was not pretty).
It may sound harsh, and cruel, but it's alot better than them getting cancer and having chemo and radiation treatments.

   Humans ,somtimes, are stupid and self destructive, and there are some kids you just can't fix. Good luck with this as it's seems to be a real problem here in the states.

Tougher physical exersize - you can't smoke and do a lot of cardiovascular work.
Also you get to notice how it's already affecting you.

Kids care about the image they portray, so making it clear that it makes you stink, your clothes stink, your breath stinks, your teeth turn yellow, and so do your fingers, and that this is all ugly might do something.

I don't think that kids worry too much about long-term health issues as it seems so far away in the future, and they think they can always quit before its too late anyway.

The only way to control such serious offence is to suspend them.
dont even allow them a single area where they can smoke.
any width given to them would finally result in an no effect tag.

the problem with these children are that if you excuse them once then they are not afraid of doing it a second time. so just suspend them if you see them smoking.

put awards(in cash) for the people who will give any info about them smoking.
and even on a single time you see them...just suspend them.

You may want to check out this information: http://www.kidspeace.org/teen_smoking.htm.

nope.. none of that worked with me    My uncle died of cancer because of smoking, my father is fighting to quit 2o years now... My school had cero tolerance, and we still always found the way to smoke.  Now, something I learned is that the bigger is the punishment you have better reasons to do it.

I think the only solution is, as Daeljan mentioned, to increase the exercize hours.

In response to TheTeenDream I have to say you sounded like Bush, and that it's because of people like you that:
1) I smoke, and
2)There's a war going on.

TheTeenDream, I hope you die of passive smoking.

Reign it in guys. Teendream is only expressing an all too prevalent frustration with school aged children and the lack of accountability for their actions. He's only half wrong IMO. There should be consequences for kids who break rules - after all they'll enter society someday and there are rules there too.

I come from a long line of public school teachers and in fact I'm about to marry one. I have heard horror stories galore about the erosion of educators' prerogatives in terms of punishment and disciplinary clout. It can be frustrating if not impossible to correct a kid's behavior in the public school system.

But I think that kicking them out of school is counter-productive. If the only punishment you receive for breaking a rule is a few days off from school (dismissal would be absurd
and i suspect legally challenge-able) you might find kids lighting up stogies in the caf!

Temporary or long-term dismissal from extra-curricular activities like sports, drama, band or even proms and parties, might have more resonance with kids. Take from them that which they truly value to show them the consequences of selfishly making other people uncomfortable/miserable by smoking.

But.....
 
"I hope you die of passive smoking"?!

"it's because of people like you that:
1) I smoke, and
2)There's a war going on."?!

Give me a break. I hate the Bush administration as much as anybody but I don't blame them or their supporters for my smoking (the war is a different matter but I hope you're not blaming Teendream for that unless you know who he voted for). And I certainly don't wish death upon people who disagree with me.

If you've got ideas about how to deal with kids who break rules, let's hear them by all means. But, people will be less likely to voice their opinions and thereby engage in a conversation about an issue if they think that someones just going to shoot them down with irrelevant invective and insults. Problems like this can't be solved unilaterally, even if you're convinced of your position.

I'm sure this is to some extent hyperbole, but crazy talk doesn't advance your argument.

hum.. i don't think I blamed Bush for my smoking.  But such comments as TeenDream's only express intolerance... and we've got enough of it.  And I don`t think it's the same to say "suspend them" than "kill'em all"... but both come form the same place, the same attitud.

I never said you blamed Bush. You said you blamed people like Teendream. but really, we as smokers can't blame anyone but ourselves now. Society has known the risks of smoking since the sixties.

But i don't read teendream's attitude as blind intolerance, just intolerance of those who willfully break the rules to the risk and annoyance of others. You're assuming that about someone you've never met.

I'm not sure "suspend them all " and "kill them all" actually do come from the same place.
Like I said, a LOT of people in this country are frustrated with the inability of public schools to do anything about the minority of kids who ruin school for he others.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but people will call you on it if they feel you mis-represent them.

Whats the piont in giving blame to me..
it isnt gonna help you or anyone...
well i was just giving my views...

i have never got to know anyone who smoke...so there is lack of information about the pysche of smoker to me..
but all ican say is that by offending me you are in a way supporting the smokers..

i agree to you all that suspention may make them smoke more...i agree..
but i thought that if nothing else works then this is the only way....

yes the excercise will work..

and sorry to you sll if i hurt the feeling of anyone here..
my intention was not to KILL THEM ALL....
it was as Alerion said.....just purely frustration...

TheSorryRebel...
TheTeenDream

P.S. dont compare me to Bush...i am not a follower of his ideas...
it was just y way of stopping things...
i was just expressing it
accepting or not accepting is upto you..
i was just showing a way...
and i am not offending anyone for saying all sorts of things to me...

i hope that all this was only an progessive debate??