Parents pull their kids out of school to travel because they believe they’ll learn more on the road
Two parents have decided to take their kids out of school so they could travel.
Carl and Ruth Jackson sold their house for more than half a million pounds and wanted to go on a big European holiday.
They bought a campervan for £60,000 and hit the road.
However, this required their kids, Maisie, 11, Pippa ,10, and Marley, five, to be taken out of their daily classes.
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While some mums and dads might question why they would stop their kids from learning, Carl and Ruth believed they'd soak up more being on the road than in the classroom.
“We had talked about going travelling since we’ve been together," Carl said.
“But it’s one of those things you think you’ll do it, but it never happens.
“I was the stumbling block, but one day Ruth just said, 'Let’s go'. And then I just thought, 'Why not?'. So off we went."
He added: “We did a dry run up to Aberdeen and stayed on a families' driveway.
"It all went well.
“When we started, we made no bookings at all. We only knew that we wanted to take the kids to Lapland."
They have traveled through 28 countries between November to August and have gone all over Europe as well as Bali and Australia.
They usually didn't book anything in advance and would just wake up and see where they wanted to go.
Carl and Ruth home schooled Maisie, Pippa and Marley during downtime on their big holiday.
They used online resources to ensure the kids were getting all the right information for their age.
"We want them to be more open-minded," Carl said.
“Sometimes the media and news can be all dull and negative, we wanted to demonstrate to them that you can go out there and have great experiences.
“You also don't need shed load of money.”
He explained that the school headmaster was actually pretty supportive of the move.
"[The headmaster] even said he had done something similar," he explained.
“We have a rather more relaxed regime than their school.
“It’s wasn't an eight till three situation, and is three to four days a week at most, but the kids do make use of their downtime.
“We genuinely believe they are got a more valuable education from all these new cultural experiences."
The family has now finished their big adventure and it's just in time for Maisie to start secondary school.
Stewart Perrie