Victim support workers say court orders designed to protect students who have been bashed or bullied are proving ineffective, as schools struggle to enforce conditions and fail to address school violence before issues reach the justice system.
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Just over 200 personal protection orders have been issued in ACT schools over the past four years, typically following violence or harassment involving students of the same school.
The number of school-based protection orders fell dramatically over the last financial year, with the courts issuing just 26, down from 56 the previous year, and 52 in 2009-10.
The orders typically require students, some as young as 10, to be separated from one another by three to 100 metres, with no contact during recess, lunch, or outside of school.
Students breaching protection orders can potentially be charged, attracting a two-year maximum prison sentence, a fine of up to $5000, or both.
Other students assisting the responder to violate the protection order can also be charged with aiding and abetting the breach.
But the Victims of Crime Assistance League (VOCAL), which regularly provides support to student victims, believes the court orders are nearly impossible to enforce in schools.
VOCAL court support and media officer Roger Grime, who has worked with four victims on school-based protection orders in the past 12 months, said maintaining conditions of no contact between the victim and the respondent was incredibly difficult.
''The conditions that we do have in there are that they stay a distance apart, and with the conditions we've dealt with, that can be between three metres and within 100 metres,'' Mr Grime said.
''In a high school setting, when you have five periods or lessons in a class and you have between 800 and 1000 children moving within a three-minute period, that's where the difficulties come from,'' he said.
School-based protection orders are treated no differently from other personal protection orders, and police are responsible for responding to any breaches.
Mr Grime said schools were failing to address issues of school violence before they come before the courts.
The Education and Training Directorate said in a statement it disagreed with VOCAL's assumptions, and it was ''happy to talk with them about any concerns'' relating to protection orders at schools.
Education Minister Chris Bourke said the enforcement of school-based protection orders was a responsibility for police, who required a complaint of a breach before acting.
''Schools and teachers assist with separation if it's required, but enforcement is really the job of police,'' Dr Bourke said.
''Bullying is not tolerated in schools and we're always concerned about the importance of maintaining the safety for staff and students.'' He said there were a range of strategies to address bullying and violence in the ACT.
''We've got a whole bunch of processes in place to manage things in schools, restorative practices, teaching better social skills to strengthen students' capacities to interact with each other and be respectful,'' Dr Bourke said.
But Mr Grime called for an increased focus on proactive measures to target bullying and violence in schools. He said the court-imposed protection orders at schools needed to be taken more seriously.
''Registrars, they've almost been quite angry with that, that these are court orders, [the issues] have come to this, and there should be a fair bit of gravitas concerned with these.''
