Teacher family take daughters out of school for year-long home-school UK caravan road trip

A teacher couple disillusioned with Britain’s education system have taken their children out of school - and taught them on a year-long caravan trip round the UK.

Tim and Kerry Meek quit their jobs and sold their £160,000 house to fund a 20,000 mile educational adventure with daughters Amy, 11 and Ella, nine.

The pair said they will home-school the girls to put the ‘fun back into learning’ because the UK school system focuses too much on targets, performance-related achievement and league tables.

They are embarking on a 12-month trip which will see them travel the length of Britain while also devising their own curriculum for their daughters.

The girls will swap the classroom for trips to castles, museums, libraries, beaches and mountains during visits to the nation's villages, towns and cities. 

During the 'road school' tour the family will visit places such as Stratford-upon-Avon to learn about Shakespeare and north Wales to learn about national parks.

They will also be travelling to Scotland for English lessons on child author Mairi Hedderwick and Geography lessons on rivers and coastal issues. 

Trips to the Midlands will teach the girls about the Industrial Revolution while their time in south Wales will be occupied with mining and wildlife conservation. 

The couple, from Arnold, Notts., said the reasons behind the move was because the nation's kids are currently being treated like 'sausages in a sausage factory.'

They claim Government policies don't understand the day-to-day needs of children and schools are simply teaching them to pass exams.

Tim  45, said: 'Children are not sausages in a sausage factory to be pumped full of facts and content ready for regurgitation at the end of some arbitrary Key Stage, when they take high-stakes assessments.

'Learning should be fun and engaging and that's why we have done this, to reinvigorate their appetites for learning by giving them a different experience.

'That way they are devising their curriculum and influencing the direction of their learning.’

Tim and Kerry, 39, say they have no criticisms of staff at Richard Bonington Primary School in Arnold, Nottingham, where their daughters attended and Kerry taught.

The pair - who have both been in the teaching profession for 10 years - said the decision was more to do with a controversial new National Curriculum, which has been introduced this year.

It demands five-year-olds to learn fractions, seven-year-olds to understand algorithms and pupils in early secondary school to study two Shakespeare plays.

'Each week we will embark on a cross curricular project that will focus on relevant subject areas like geography, history, or science.

'We've given ourselves a minimum of an academic year, but if it goes well we might carry on. 

'But we are realistic and we know the girls will return to school at some point.

‘It’s (the current national curriculum) all about targets and keeping Ofsted off your back and not about what is best for the children.

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'It is not the fault of the teachers or heads. There is too much pressure on performance-related achievement and league tables.

'Children's engagement and enjoyment of school is deteriorating as a result and we just want to reinvigorate that interest and prove learning can still be fun.'

While Britain's children were returning to the classroom this week, the Meeks spent their first day of their trip for a history lesson at Warwick Castle on Monday.

Tim added: 'We used the visit to Warwick Castle as the stimulus and asked the girls what questions they wanted answering.

'It's more engaging because they're inside the fascinating castle walls. Plus is was great fun too.’

Amy said: 'In school we were having tests all the time. It felt like we were learning just to be tested.

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'We are going to have more freedom now and we'll still learn the important things like English and maths.

'I will miss my friends but we have social media and things like Skype to keep in contact.'

The adventurous Meeks are the same couple who last year set their daughters a challenge of completing 100 new outdoor activities in 12 months.

They ditched TV for outdoor pursuits, which included caving, sleeping on a beach, snorkelling and snow hiking.

They were given their four-berth caravan by manufacturer Eldiss as a Caravan Club prize for visiting 20 caravan sites across the country and finishing the 100 challenges on their travels.

They have also set up a blog where other parents can follow their progress at www.dotrythisathome.com.