Aussie family of six make 'daunting' choice to home school while caravanning Australia
Home schooling has become increasingly popular in Australia since the pandemic, and more families are taking advantage of being able to work from the road.
Defying society's expectations isn't easy. Just ask mum-of-four Nicky Mumford.
At the beginning of the year, along with her husband Brad and their kids aged from 1 to 11, they said goodbye to their home and traditional lifestyle to pursue a long-held dream. They rented out their Adelaide home and swapped it for a borrowed caravan and set out to work and home school while they travelled the country.
"It was quite daunting and overwhelming," Nicky told Yahoo News of making the change, especially taking on the responsibility of the children's education while on the road.
"You do fall back on what society says," she added, alluding to the unspoken pressure to live like everyone else.
But it's something they've always thought about. And after their fourth and final addition to the family, they began to plan in earnest.
"It wasn’t until we had our last child and that season of our life had finished that we really thought about it," she said. "The biggest thing for us was actually setting the date."
That date was February this year when they gathered up their gear, and the kids' favourite toys, and hit the road.
The rise of home schooling in Australia
The couple have two girls, Hannah and Madelyn, and two little boys, Ari and Micah. They were paying private school fees for the school-aged kids and viewed their early education as "really important".
"I didn’t want to look back on this a think, 'Gee we really stuffed up pulling them out of school'," Nicky said.
She spoke to all her kids' teachers and quizzed them on everything she could before buying a program online. "The advice I got was that they will learn so much on the road... Just focus on maths and english."
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Families looking to home school must register with the education authorities of their state government, so there are good statistics on the growing number of families joining the trend. Today there are about 40,000 Aussies kids being taught at home which is double the rate of before the pandemic, just less than five years ago.
Queensland has seen the sharpest increase in home-schooling rates, rising from 3,400 students in 2019 to more than 10,000 in 2023 — a near tripling.
In NSW meanwhile, state government data shows a steady climb from just under 6,000 students in 2019 to more than 12,000 in 2022 and 2023.
For Nicky and the kids, it's not always easy, with her seven-year-old Maddie the most resistant to tutelage under the new teacher. "When we're clashing, I just leave it," Nicky told Yahoo from a free camp site outside Cooktown, north of Cairns.
Overall, "they're loving it," she added. "Last week we spent the whole week in the Daintree rainforest."
While still unconventional, she sees home schooling on the road as a different kind of education for her kids and credits it with fostering a deeper understanding and empathy for the natural world among them.
Do you have a story about home schooling that you'd like to share? Nick.whigham@yahooinc.com
Australians taking record number of caravan and camping trips
According to data from the Federal Australian Trade and Investment Commission, Australians took 15.3 million caravan and camping trips in 2023 — setting a new all-time high.
Once largely the domain of 'grey nomads', an increasing number of caravanners are younger families. "Our experience is that it is very much grey nomads, but there are a lot of families these days," Nicky said, meaning the kids are often able to find other children at camping grounds around the country.
Online, she shares her travels and tips with a growing community of like-minded nomads, even encouraging others to also take the plunge.
For now, the family intend to stick to the caravan life for two years as they move around the country.
The trailer they are currently living out of has been borrowed from her parents. But her mum and dad have another caravan and expect to join the family next year, so the grandparents will also be along for the ride.
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