A MALVERN family are 'road-schooling' their children on a once-in-a-lifetime journey across Europe and North Africa.

The Cook family have been travelling across the two continents in their campervan, affectionately named Gilbert, since September 2022.

Julia Cook, and her husband Tim Cook, wanted to give their children William, aged 8, and Elizabeth, aged 6, the opportunity to see the world from a young age.

Mrs Cook is a paediatric nurse at Birmingham Children's Hospital and took a sabbatical so she could travel, and Mr Cook works on the road running an online mental health and first aid business.

Mrs Cook said: "We think this trip was a brilliant opportunity to open our children's eyes and realise that the world is a big place with lots of different cultures.

"Malvern is a very white, middle-class place and we believe it is important to learn that not everywhere is the same.

"We took them out of Wyche Primary School last year and have been road-schooling ever since."

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William and Elizabeth have been taught using the UK curriculum as a guideline with their two-hour Monday to Friday lessons also being adapted based on wherever the family are visiting.

Mrs Cook said: "The children's morning lessons have included a lot of geography and history, such as learning about weather and climate, and history including things such as Ancient Greece.

"We have visited places such as France, Spain, Greece, The Balkans and Morroco to name a few, and we are currently based near Antalya in Turkey."

Despite the drastic living arrangement change, the family took to the campervan better than they thought they would.

Mrs Cook said: "We thought that it would be difficult adjusting to the campervan but we were very surprised how quickly we took to the change.

"We have a double bed above the cab and the children have bunk beds to sleep on, we also have a living area and also a kitchen. It is our home.

"This morning, we are parked on a beach and I can wake up to the sounds of the ocean which is amazing. We can go for a run and then jump into the sea for a quick swim."

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The family will return to England when the trip ends in August.

She said: "We are preparing to enter the children back in school for September.

"Elizabeth has Down Syndrome so she requires an education healthcare plan which we are in the process of arranging.

"Hopefully the children will be back in school by then and we will be back to our normal routine before we left for our trip."

The family have been keeping a blog of their travels which you can access here, https://familyroadtrip.blog/?fbclid=IwAR0iHLKoh-KT00x0-RNqzNJUYvGUgOlIX0-y4AYkULn6ygSIPBJ4tHJBv70.