Toowoomba School Holidays 2026: Complete QLD Calendar

Toowoomba school holidays 2026 follow the standard Queensland state school calendar — there’s no separate Darling Downs variation. Term 1 runs Tuesday 27 January to Thursday 2 April. Term 2 is Monday 20 April to Friday 26 June. Term 3 is Monday 13 July to Friday 18 September. Term 4 is Tuesday 6 October to Friday 11 December.

Where Toowoomba families do need a separate calendar is Catholic schools. Toowoomba Catholic Schools (the Diocese of Toowoomba’s 32 schools across the Darling Downs and South-West Queensland) runs its own dates — starting Term 1 a day later than state schools, and with a genuinely unusual regional quirk around the mid-year break. Details below.

Toowoomba state school terms 2026 — the full table

The breaks between terms

Toowoomba Catholic Schools: a one-day-later start and a three-way regional split

Toowoomba Catholic Schools — 32 schools spanning Toowoomba, Warwick, Dalby, Oakey, Pittsworth, Clifton, Stanthorpe, Goondiwindi, Millmerran, Allora, Inglewood, Chinchilla, Tara, Roma, Mitchell, Charleville, Cunnamulla, St George and Quilpie — publishes its own term dates through the Diocese of Toowoomba.

Two other genuine differences from the state calendar: Toowoomba Catholic Schools finishes Year 12 on Friday 20 November and Years 10 and 11 on Friday 27 November — both well before the diocese’s general Term 4 finish of Friday 4 December, and well before the state school finish of Friday 11 December. If you have a senior secondary student, don’t assume they finish the year on the same date as younger siblings.

Independent schools

Independent schools in Toowoomba — including the city’s well-known grammar schools — set their own calendars rather than automatically following the state or Catholic system. Most sit close to the state school dates, but differences of a week or more at Term 1’s start or Term 4’s finish are common, particularly around boarding-school transition days. Check your specific school’s calendar directly.

Public holidays around Toowoomba's school terms in 2026

Worth flagging for anyone who’s moved from further south: Queensland’s Labour Day falls in early May, not March (like WA and Victoria) or October (like NSW, SA and the ACT) — and because it lands inside Term 2 rather than a break, it’s one of the few QLD public holidays that actually costs Toowoomba students a school day.

Holiday planning around Toowoomba and the Darling Downs

• Queens Park and the Toowoomba Botanic Gardens — free, central, and a reliable half-day option any break.
• Cobb+Co Museum (a National Museum of Australia branch) and the Empire Theatre both run school-holiday activities and screenings most terms.
• Picnic Point — lookout, playground and parkland over the Toowoomba escarpment, popular with families for a free outing.
• Toowoomba Regional Council libraries run school holiday programs across branches in Toowoomba, Warwick, Dalby, Oakey and Pittsworth — check each branch’s “what’s on” listing.

Vacation care runs through most primary schools’ regular before/after-school-care provider, plus council-run programs across the region — book early for the Summer break in particular. The Child Care Subsidy applies to vacation care for eligible families the same way it applies to term-time care; check your own rate through Services Australia.

Planning around the breaks

• If you have a Year 12 student in a Toowoomba Catholic school, mark Friday 20 November — two weeks before the general Term 4 finish and three weeks before state schools finish.
• If you have children in both state and Catholic schools, the one-day Term 1 start gap (27 vs 28 January) is minor, but the different Term 4 finish dates for senior students are the one that actually needs a family calendar entry.
• Summer is the break to book earliest for, since school holiday programs and family travel bookings both fill up fastest for the 46-day stretch.

For the rest of Queensland, see our main QLD school holidays 2026 guide, or our Catholic school holidays 2026 guide for how other dioceses around Australia compare. If you’re new to Australia and still working out how school enrolment, OSHC and the term system fit together, our homepage indexes the rest of our settling-in guides.

Frequently asked questions