The courts have granted 54 ''school-based'' protection orders where both parties attend the same school so far in 2008, an increase of almost 40 per cent on last year's 39 orders, as families turn to the courts in record numbers to protect their children from schoolyard violence.

The orders can apply to children as young as eight, require a court appearance and force the alleged bully to keep a distance of between 3m and 100m from their accuser, making them notoriously difficult for a school to enforce. Breaching an order is an offence that can result in a child acquiring a criminal record.

The escalating figures, issued by the ACT Magistrates Court this week, come 18 months after Education Minister Andrew Barr promised action on school bullies.

In May last year, the minister pledged to look at ''system-wide practices and crisis management'' in response to Justice and Community Safety Department statistics showing a 100 per cent increase in families applying for school-based protection orders between 2005 and 2007.

But Canberra lawyer Sheila Foliaki-Singh, who has represented 10 children applying for orders in the past year and advised another 20 clients in cases where the victims stopped short of court action, said schools were allowing bullying to spiral ''out of control''. She said, ''There's not enough being done at the school level.

''Sometimes teachers don't take these things seriously enough and things get to a stage when parents feel they have no choice but to take court action.

''Many parents say they've complained and complained to the school and that they have had enough and then they go to court.''

The Civic-based lawyer said the Magistrates Court figures represented the ''tip of the iceberg''.

''It's only in the worst-case scenario where they actually issue orders: in a lot of cases the matters are listed for conference so the issues can be mediated,'' Ms Foliaki-Singh said.