The school term has now begun at most schools in Victoria. Cars are now obliged to crawl past primary and secondary schools at 40 km/h at certain times of day.

In the Road Rules – Victoria, school zones were defined and described at r 23. Under the Road Safety Road Rules 2009 school zones are gone but a similar rule has been inserted at r 317A,

317A Traffic control devices applying on school days

(1) If information on or with a traffic control device indicates that it applies on school days, it only applies—

(a) on a declared school day; or

(b) on any day indicated to be a school day by information on or with the traffic control device.

Note

Rule 317 provides that information on or with a traffic control device may indicate the times, days or circumstances when it applies or does not apply.

* Example *
The following sign applies—

• on declared school days, but not on other days unless information on or with the sign indicates that it is a school day at that place; and
• at the times indicated on school days, but not at other times.
Note that a sign may have a different number on the sign—see rule 316(4) of these Rules.

(2) For the avoidance of doubt, subrule (1) does not limit or extend the effect of a traffic control device that does not have other information on or with that traffic control device.
* Example *
The following sign is not restricted to certain times or days and applies whenever it is displayed.
(3) In this rule—

declared school day means any day that falls within a period declared by the Corporation, by notice in the Government Gazette, to be a school days period for the purposes of this rule, and that is not one of the following—

(a) a Saturday or a Sunday; or

(b) a day appointed under the Public Holidays Act 1993 as a public holiday in the place in which the traffic control device is located.

Note

Different schools have different terms. For this reason, a declared school days period may include days or weeks when many schools are open although some are closed. For the same reason, information on or with a traffic control device may indicate that it is a school day at that particular place even though the day is not in a declared school days period because most other schools are closed at that time or is a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday.
Note

Traffic control device is defined in the dictionary.

The relevant gazette for 2011 is Government Gazette S 467, published on 16 November of last year. It contains a table of the declared school days for this year:

School Days Period 1 = 31 January 2011 to 8 April 2011
School Days Period 2 = 27 April 2011 to 1 July 2011
School Days Period 3 = 18 July 2011 to 23 September 2011
School Days Period 4 = 10 October 2011 to 22 December 2011

These days are school days unless there is local signage that says otherwise.

This information has been added to the TABLE menu on the left (and for more on these, read the Tables bar post.)