[Lilly]

We had a smokers corner too. There was a classroom window above it and teachers used to hang out of it and tell the smokers to come in and stand in the entrance hall. The smokers corner was also regularly 'policed' by teachers and dinner ladies who would confiscate the fags and send the offenders to the head teacher to be punished. The smokers usually had someone standing just round the other side of the smokers corner, acting as a look-out. When a teacher or dinner lady looked to be coming over, the look-out would hiss a warning round the corner to the smokers so they could stamp their fags out quickly.
Of course, this was all on the premises, inside the school yard, so the school had authority over what went on in there. I don't think there was anything they could do about the brazen ones who stand smoking on the street before and after school as it is out of school hours and off the school premises. All the teachers could do was go and tell them what a filthy habit it was etc etc. They couldn't actually mete out a punishment to them.