So when is Easter then?
Next year a lot of people are going to be surprised to find that Easter does not fall in the school holidays. How could that happen?
Well, for many years attempts by the Government to rationalise the school holidays have met with failure. So three years ago the London boroughs decided to work together to make it happen. Education was in my portfolio then and I supported the changes on behalf of Kingston.
The problem has been that Easter can fall on any date between 23rd March and 25th April. This means that school terms have varied in length, disrupting the rhythm of the academic year. As a teacher I often found this was difficult to manage and was pleased when the idea of equal length terms was floated.
As from 2007, the Spring school holidays in London will always be roughly the first two full weeks in April. Surrey County Council is also adopting the same pattern.
This year Easter conveniently fell within the holiday period so no-one noticed the change. Next year Easter falls on the earliest possible date - March 23rd. Schools will simply take a long weekend at this time, as Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays. The school holidays will run from Mon 7th April to Friday 18th April 2008.
So any parent of a school child planning a family holiday for the week after Easter is going to find they're in trouble!
The question is, have the tour operators woken up to the change yet? Maybe 2008 is the year to take a holiday in April before they notice and put up the prices.
Footnote
Does anyone really understand how the date of Easter is fixed? Logically it should be related to the date of Passover, which itself depends on the new moon - but the two events rarely coincide. It seems they got out of sync many years ago and the Easter date seems to be based on a virtual moon cycle rather than a real one. Can anyone explain? Is there any reason why Easter could not be on a fixed date like Christmas?
Incidently, the churches raised no objections to the change in school holiday dates.
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http://www.cofe.anglican.org/about/gensynod/proceedings/2001jul/rp2001julday2-3.pdf
start at 6 on page 4.
on calculating the date there is much interesting material about but i was intrigued to learn that it will become more difficult after 4099AD
see
http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/eastalg.htm
of course the C of E has dates calculated the dates to 2030 and on its website at
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/calendar/dateofeaster.html
is that any clearer?
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/about/gensynod/proceedings/2001jul/
rp2001julday2-3.pdf
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/calendar/
dateofeaster.html
But my simple soul would still like to see it in line with Jewish calculations of Passover.
According to theyworkforyou.com, in written answers in the Lords on 6 April 2005, Lord Sainsbury of Turville (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Science and Innovation), Department of Trade and Industry) said:
"We have no plans to amend the Easter Act 1928. It remains on the statute book but the Act requires that before a draft order is laid before Parliament 'regard shall be had to any opinion officially expressed by any Church or other Christian body'. At this time, the Churches have not expressed a desire or willingness to move to a fixed Easter".
( http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2005-04-06b.122.3 }
So, despite his title, this Government minister was commenting on a matter that is entirely unscientific ,in a manner that is definitely not innovative...
http://localfocus.blogspot.com/
Well, you knew that, but now all my readers do as well.
Thanks for the enlightening info.
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