As reported by the Lutterworth Mail, a school in the Harborough district in Leicestershire is offering smoking cessation help to its students.

The school authorities are offering smoking cessation advice and are also providing quit smoking aids like nicotine patches to its students, the weekly newspaper notes, adding that while the focus is mostly on teen smokers, the authorities at Robert Smyth Academy are not discriminating amongst pupils of different ages.

Those who have picked up the bad habit at an early age must be “serious about wanting to quit”, the Lutterworth Mail quotes student welfare assistant Angela Sippits as saying. She categorically says the authorities are fully prepared to offer in-person help and support, emphasising that the students must be eager enough to take help and stop smoking for good.

The newspaper learns that the school had earlier conducted smoking cessation support programmes for groups but this is the first time quit smoking aids are included.

Advising teens about the dangers of tobacco and helping them to stop smoking is not the only purpose of the programme, the Lutterworth Mail notes, saying that the authorities want the young students to become more mature about the issues involved with nicotine addiction. They believe it will be easier to fight the battle against tobacco in the future if today’s kids grow up to be knowledgeable and aware citizens, according to the weekly news source.