The Church of England has indicated that it is ready to abandon its opposition to the link between Easter and the school holidays as schools in England brace themselves for mass pupil absences later this month.

This year Easter is the earliest it has been since 1913 with Easter Sunday falling on March 23. Pupils in two thirds of local authorities will have days off on Good Friday (March 21) and Easter Monday (March 24), but will then have to return to school until start of the school holidays on Friday April 4.

Teachers fear that some parents wanting to take advantage of their own time off from work over the Easter Bank holiday will simply pull their children out of school to take them away during the week before or after Easter, rather than wait for the official school break two weeks later.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “There is a real risk that parents will pull children out of school during term time.”

This is most likely to happen in local authorities that are adjacent to other authorities where the spring school holidays coincide with the religious festival, he added.

The Church of England has in the past opposed proposals that would cut the connection between Easter and the spring school holiday, because of fears that this would erode the Christian basis of one of the nation's shared holidays and upset the "rhythm" of national life.

Eight years ago, the Church objected strongly when some local authorities introduced a six-term school year.

But the Church told The Times that dioceses now would be unlikely to object if any of its faith schools broke the link between the Easter and the holiday to match neighbouring local authority schools. The bonus for the Church is that if the link is broken, they can expect to have the children at school for themed assemblies during Holy Week, one of the most important in the Christian year.

A break in the connection between the festival and the school year would help almost every section of society, including industry, schools, parents and travel companies.

Schools come under intense pressure from the schools inspectorate Ofsted and central government not to authorise parents to take children on holiday during term time, there is nothing they can do to stop it. Any unauthorised absences of this type will show up on the schools performance record and could count against them during an Ofsted inspection.

“Ofsted will see that unauthorised absences have gone up, but they are unlikely to look at the reasons behind this, so schools could suffer,” Dr Dunford said.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: “We are getting more and more reports from our members in schools saying that parents are complaining that the Easter holidays do not coincide with the Easter bank holiday.”