No — government schools in Queensland are in Term 4.

The department's calendar is not everybody's calendar

These are the dates for Queensland state schools. Catholic and independent schools set their own, and in Queensland the differences are often larger than elsewhere. Check your own school.

That is why a search for your state's school holidays turns up your state's education department, an independent schools association and somebody's individual school, all with slightly different dates. None of them is wrong. They are answering for different schools.

• Government schools — The dates in the tables on this page, set by the department.
• Catholic systemic schools — Catholic systemic schools are close to the government dates but not bound by them — dioceses set their own staff development days, and start and finish days can move by a day or two. Check your diocese or your school.
• Independent schools — Independent schools set their own calendar entirely. In practice most start a little earlier and finish a little earlier than the government dates, and their terms can be a few days shorter at each end. The only reliable source is your own school’s published calendar.

The QLD department sets these dates and publishes them

Five in 2026 and six in 2027, set by the department: two or three fixed at the end of the summer holidays, two in the Easter holidays that a school may move after consulting its local consultative committee, and one fixed student-free day in the third last week of Term 3 — one of only two jurisdictions that put a department-set day off inside term time, Tasmania being the other. Dates are published years ahead; the department's future-dates page already carries 2028 and 2029.

Five in 2026 and six in 2027, and one of them lands mid-term rather than in a holiday.

Things the dates alone do not tell you

• Queensland counts a holiday period from the day after the last school day to the day before students return — usually Saturday to Sunday, longer where a public holiday sits at either end (Good Friday 3 April 2026, the King's Birthday 5 October 2026) — so its own figures include the weekends at both ends.
• All but one of Queensland’s staff professional development days fall in the holidays: the department fixes a student-free day in the third last week of Term 3, in the middle of term. Students do not attend that day. The two days in the Easter holidays are flexible and a school may move them after consulting its local consultative committee, so the April dates here are the scheduled ones rather than a guarantee.