About

The first ASTC tournament was held in Sydney during December 1998, initially with Primary and Secondary Open divisions. In 1999, Primary and Secondary Girls divisions were added in order to encourage more girls to participate.

Since its inception, the Australian Schools Teams Championships has gone from strength to strength with many of Australia's top junior boys and girls participating in the event.

Each state and territory is entitled to enter one representative team per division in the four ASTC divisions. Typically, these teams are winners of their state or territory chess association endorsed finals or playoffs. Additionally teams from the host state may be added to ensure even numbers of teams in each division. 

The time control for the competition is 1 hour plus 10 seconds per move, and each division is a round robin competition. This means that while the anticipated length of each competition is 5 rounds, this may change depending on the number of entries from different states.