The Education Directorate data captures how many students were involved in each incident, meaning multiple people are counted in each assault and the same student may be recorded several times in the same year.

A directorate spokeswoman said the upward trend was in line with a cultural shift towards better reporting.

"Our Safe and Supportive Schools policy sets the platform for every student to have the right to be treated with fairness and dignity," a spokeswoman said.

"Our policy ensures schools have processes in place to address bullying, harassment, violence and to respond to complex and challenging behaviour.

"The code of conduct also outlines acceptable behaviour of students, staff, parents and visitors to Canberra public schools."

Earlier this year, Fairfax Media revealed Canberra public school teachers were paid more than $6 million over five years in compensation for physical and psychological injuries. Separate figures showed almost 700 school staff were assaulted last year alone.

Australian Education Union ACT secretary Glenn Fowler said the increase in the number of children and teenagers involved in student-on-student assaults likely reflected a growing awareness and intolerance of violence.

"Statistically, a school is about the safest place you can be, but we are not immune from the ills of society - and an ill that all society's grappling with at the moment is violence," he said.

"Presumably kids have not become 10 times more violent in the past five years, so presumably we're becoming more adept at recognising it.

"We can never violence-proof any part of the community, but we can ensure that there's a clear message sent that when it occurs at any level it will be properly and maturely address and never swept under the carpet."

The Education Directorate spokeswoman said schools did not record assaults, instead recording "abuse - physical", "anti-social behaviour - physical" and "victim of anti-social - physical".

"These categories are broad and do not reflect the varying degrees of seriousness of the circumstances," she said.

"Canberra public schools are inclusive environments. Our schools strive to provide safe, respectful and supportive environments."

There were 233 records of involvement in an incident in 2012, 459 in 2013, 853 in 2014, 1521 in 2015, 2383 in 2016 and 2062 to September this year.

The Education Directorate unveiled its occupational violence policy for school staff in July after steady campaigning by the Australian Education Union.