As a government consultation on measures to tackle youth vaping comes to an end, BBC South East speaks to head teachers, teaching staff and students to find out the impact e-cigarettes are having in schools.
"You find them asking to go out of the lessons to go into the toilets," said Sade Afolabi, a teacher in Surrey, and spokeswoman for the NASUWT teaching union.
"It is damaging because when you quantify how much time is lost it's quite a big loss to learning," she added.
A recent survey by the anti-smoking group ASH found that 20.5% of children aged 11 to 17 had tried vaping, up from 15.8% in 2022.
Many schools have introduced vape alarms to detect whether pupils are using electronic cigarettes in the toilets.
Ashley Crittenden, chair of the Association of Kent Headteachers, 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.
Meanwhile, the government has outlined plans to tax vapes and tighten restrictions to curb vaping in young people.
