Australian government schools run on a four-term year. That is the shared pattern. Almost everything else — the first day students attend, the length of each break, the placement of student-free days, the treatment of a western division or a border campus — is decided by the state or territory education department, and sometimes by an individual school sitting on a state line.
This page exists to send you to those official calendars and to explain why a copied table on an unofficial website is a poor substitute. It does not print this year’s dates. Dates that are retyped away from the department page become wrong the moment a calendar is revised, and inventing a date would be worse. If you need a day-by-day answer, open the department calendar for the jurisdiction where the school actually is.
This is an independent guide. It is not a government website.
Why calendars differ
Schooling is a state and territory responsibility. Departments negotiate term structures with public holidays, climate, agricultural patterns, and the practical need for staff professional-learning days. A family that moves from Brisbane to Adelaide in December can find that the new system’s Term 1 starts on a different weekday, with a different set of student-free days in front of it.
Even inside one state, the calendar is not always uniform. The NSW Department of Education publishes a Western Division variation with a later student start. It also notes that a small number of schools near the Victorian or Queensland borders may follow a different calendar; those schools say so on their own sites. The Northern Territory notes that some campuses, including schools that consult locally on a flexible year, can sit outside the standard grid.
If you are planning travel, enrolments, or a house move, read the calendar that belongs to the school, not the calendar that belongs to a capital city you used to live in.
Official calendars, by jurisdiction
Use these departmental starting points, then follow the department’s own links to the year you need. Links and page titles change; if a URL moves, search the department’s name plus “term dates”.
- New South Wales — NSW Department of Education school calendars, including statewide and Western Division information: education.nsw.gov.au school calendars.
- Victoria — Victorian Government term-date pages via vic.gov.au. Search “term dates” on the education section.
- Queensland — Queensland Department of Education calendar pages: education.qld.gov.au calendar.
- Western Australia — WA Department of Education future term dates: education.wa.edu.au.
- South Australia — Department for Education term dates for state schools: education.sa.gov.au.
- Tasmania — Department for Education, Children and Young People term dates: decyp.tas.gov.au.
- Australian Capital Territory — Education Directorate / ACT Government public school term dates, including multi-year tables when published: act.gov.au education.
- Northern Territory — NT.GOV.AU school term and holiday dates: nt.gov.au school term dates.
Bookmark the department page, not a screenshot. If you need a file for a workplace or a visa application, download it from the department, so the source is clear.
Student-free days, development days, and “first day for students”
A term date is not always the first day children attend. Departments often start teachers earlier, for planning, and they place school-development or student-free days on Mondays at the beginning of a term. The ACT’s published calendars, for example, distinguish teacher commencement, new-student start days, and continuing-student return days. NSW lists school-development days separately from the first-to-last days for students.
If you are arranging care, flights, or a grandparent’s visit, read every line of the calendar, not only the term-start heading. A “Term 1 begins” label can hide three different dates.
Individual schools may also use additional pupil-free days approved under local policy. The school’s newsletter is the authority for those. A national guide cannot see them.
Public holidays and the school year
Public holidays sit on a different legal track from term dates. A weekday public holiday during term is still a day without ordinary lessons, but it is not a “holiday break” in the four-term sense. Families who work across two states — a parent in Albury–Wodonga, a family moving during Easter — need both the school calendar and the public-holiday list for that state.
Do not assume that a holiday observed in one capital is observed in another. Do not assume that a school on a border uses the holiday list of the nearest large city.
Kindergarten, orientation, and the weeks before Term 1
The calendar for currently enrolled students is not the whole calendar that matters to a family starting school. Orientation visits, transition programs, and enrolment interviews often sit in the previous year, usually in the later terms. Schools advertise those locally. They are not standardised on the department term-date page.
If your child is due to start the Foundation year, watch the school’s own communications from the middle of the previous year. The enrolment guide covers the application itself. The term-date page only tells you when the year, once it begins, is broken into four pieces.
Moving interstate during the year
A mid-year move means leaving one calendar and entering another. The receiving school will place the student in a year level according to age and previous schooling, then follow its own term structure from the start date you agree. There is no national “week 4 of Term 3” that lines up across the Bass Strait or the Nullarbor.
Tell the new school the last day of attendance at the previous school, and ask how it handles overlapping breaks. Some families arrive during a holiday and wait; some arrive mid-term and start immediately. That is a school conversation, not a map conversation.
Why this site refuses to reprint a table
Unofficial term-date tables are one of the most copied pieces of education content on the open web, and they are routinely wrong: a Western Division variation omitted, a student-free day dropped, a year tab left on last year. This guide would rather send you to the department than add another stale copy.
Planning around a calendar without copying it
Families use term dates for more than holidays. Enrolment interviews, Foundation orientation, immunisation appointments, and the start of before-school care all hang off the same grid. The useful habit is to put the official calendar in one browser tab and the school’s newsletter in another. The first tells you when the system is open. The second tells you when this campus expects your child.
If you work in a job with school-holiday peaks — tourism, retail, health — ask your employer to treat the departmental calendar as the source, not a photocopied grid from a Facebook group. A Western Division variation or a student-free Monday can turn a planned first day into a day of care you have not booked.
Before- and after-school care programs often follow the school term but not always the student-free days. A pupil-free day can still be a working day for a parent. Ask the care provider, which may not be the school, how it treats those days. This guide will not invent a fee or a booking rule for that service.
Inclusive calendars, and days that are not in the four-term grid
Schools also close, or alter programs, for locally significant days that are not always visible on a statewide PDF. A campus may mark NAIDOC events, a community show day, or a religious observance in ways that affect attendance. Those decisions are school-level. They do not replace the department term dates; they sit beside them.
Families who observe days that the school does not automatically close for should talk with the campus early. Attendance policies are departmental as well as local. A conversation in Term 1 is better than a surprise letter in Term 3.
Using this page with the rest of the guide
Term dates do not decide a catchment, and they do not rank a school. They decide when the year you have already enrolled in will break into four pieces. Get the enrolment right first, on the official finder, then download the calendar from the department that runs that school.
If you came here from a search for a specific year’s dates, use the official links above. If you are trying to understand how terms relate to enrolment, catchments or choosing a school, the rest of this site is written for that slower work. For jurisdiction-specific finders, open the state and territory hubs. For the first-year age rules that sit beside the calendar, see enrolment. For a choosing method that does not depend on a calendar screenshot, see choosing a public school. If an employer, a visa case officer or a housing provider asks for “the Australian school holidays”, the accurate answer is that there is no single national grid — attach the departmental calendar for the jurisdiction where the child will actually attend. If two children in the same household will attend schools in two jurisdictions — a not-uncommon border arrangement — download both calendars and plan to the stricter set of student-free days rather than hoping they match.