Learning on the long road to Tipperary … and back
Kirsty Larmour taught her daughters, Saffy, 11, and Indy, 9, when she and husband Tommy took them on a year-long, 60,000-kilometre road trip from Abu Dhabi to Ireland and back. “My girls were 6 and 8 when we pulled them out of school,” Ms Larmour says. “We followed the British curriculum of the school they’d been at in Abu Dhabi and on the advice of their teachers pitched the level slightly above what they would have been studying, so they would have no problems slotting back into school on our return. “Mostly, the kids studied in the back of the car on driving days and studied in some of countries we visited. “We supported their learning with books we got from Amazon and apps, which meant we spent less than £ 100 (Dh470) on their formal education that year. “This made life on the road far cheaper than at home in Abu Dhabi. “Probably the best things they learnt were not school-related – to be more resourceful, to live with less and be adaptable to new situations. All we had was what we could fit into our family car, which doesn’t leave much space for luxuries, and you soon realise how easy it is to live without them. “They learnt real-world maths by doing currency exchanges, calculating distances and numbers of hours to get somewhere, and by working out our daily expenditure. “They learnt the value of good, fresh food and how many countries don’t have drinking water.”