Schools across England, Wales and Northern Ireland return in the first week of January, and Scotland's pupils go back a few days earlier after the New Year break. The spring term is the longest unbroken stretch of teaching in the year, running to half term in February with mock examinations for older pupils packed into the first weeks of it.
January opens the first calendar quarter of 2030 and sits in the tenth month of the tax year, which began on the previous 6 April and has until 5 April to run. Businesses closing their books at the end of January are therefore working to a monthly cycle, a quarterly one and a tax year that agrees with neither, which is why so much accounting software carries three separate calendars.
The turn from January into February closes the tax deadline that dominates the second half of the month and lets the calendar breathe. What follows is a month with no bank holiday anywhere in the United Kingdom, a week of half term somewhere in the middle of it, and the first snowdrops in sheltered ground.