A MUM says she lost friends after taking her kids out of school and moving her family of four to live off-grid in a 9ft ‘old horsebox’ – but says she has no regrets.
Angie Burkey, 45, was heartbroken when her youngest son Fox Burkey began to struggle with being in a classroom due to his autism and eventually opted to take him out of school when he was six.
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The mum-of-two decided to home educate Fox herself, using the flexibility of being self-employed, as she runs a holiday cleaning business with her husband Danny Burkey.
Angie and Danny soon realised the only thing tying them to Cornwall was their rented house and so took their eldest son Phoenix out of school too.
After an “absolutely horrific” winter living completely off-grid in a small touring caravan, the family decided to upgrade to a 40-year-old horsebox that they bought for £1,900 and spent another £2,000 renovating.
The family now live in the 9ft by 4ft horsebox 24/7 – squeezing in the two adults, two children and even greyhound cross called Creeper.
READ MORE ON HOMESCHOOLING
They kitted out the unusual living space with solar panels, running water, a fridge, a freezer, a TV, an air fryer, and a wood burner that can double as a pizza oven.
Now the family live in the horsebox full time, spending half the year on their plot in Cornwall, working cleaning holiday lets to save money so they can spend their winters travelling the continent for the other six months of the year.
However not everyone understood their decision and they found “judgement” from others and lost a lot of friends – though has made new friends with those who appreciate their off-grid lifetstyle.
Angie said: “We spend six months working in Cornwall doing all of the holiday lets. We’ve worked really hard all summer, the boys worked with us.
“We save all our money, we don’t spend a lot when we’re back in the UK. We try and live quite frugally. Then we come out here and live and don’t work.
“All our money is our own, so everything we earn we can almost save it.
“We’re completely free, we can do what we want when we want.
“It’s hard, it comes with its challenges travelling around in an old horsebox, but we can’t afford to do it any other way.
“Some people say how can you live like that? What if it all goes wrong?
“What’s the alternative? Just sitting back home and not living?”
Angie has been home-educating her children, now aged nine and 12, for around three years and said she has found they learn best from life itself.
After Fox left mainstream education, he was diagnosed with PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance), a subtype of autism that is defined by a refusal to comply with requests.
Angie said: “Fox just couldn’t go to school. We didn’t know he was autistic. He had a breakdown.
“He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping. He couldn’t cope with any of the sensory stuff like the noise at school. Just all of it.
“I just thought, do you know what, he’s coming out. I just researched it myself into home education.
“I just thought I can do this, we can legally do this.
CAN I TAKE MY CHILD OUT OF SCHOOL?
You can legally take your child out of school and teach them at home.
Their current school can only refuse to give permission if you plan to do it part-time.
Also, if your child is attending school due to a school attendance order you must get permission from your local council to home school.
The local authority can then make a ‘informal enquiry’ to check the child is getting suitable education at home.
If they the situation is unsuitable, they can then serve an order.
And if the child is SEN and attends a special school you’ll need to get the council’s permission to begin home schooling.
Aside from that, as long as you are providing a full-time education you don’t have to follow the national curriculum.
See the Government’s guidelines for more information.
“We had to do something. We were not going to send him to school.
“We were still living in a house at the time and we thought the only tie we’ve got is the rent on this house. So, we looked about and there was a touring caravan that was coming up for sale and it had a bit of land with it.
“We thought do you know what? Let’s do it.
“We did one winter like that and it was absolutely horrific and we were like if we’re doing this we need a bigger van.”
The family then bought a 40-year-old horsebox for £1,900 and spent a further £2,000 renovating the interior themselves, adding running water, a toilet, and a diesel heater as well as two single beds and two double beds.
This year they hope to travel through France, Spain and Morocco in their moving home.
Their only outgoings are £300 per month for their caravan plot in the UK, diesel, breakdown cover and food.
Due to Fox’s autism, Angie said she finds it best if she lets her children decide what and how they would like to learn, so she does not stick to a curriculum.
Angie said: “He’s got to be in control. He has to have autonomy over everything. It’s really hard. It’s why it wasn’t spotted, I think, at school. He was quite confident, I just didn’t pick up on it.
“He needed to just learn as he wanted to learn, out in the world. He’s so traumatised by school, anything that resembles a school or teaching, he just shuts down. He just doesn’t cope.
“He’s thriving now, he’s so clever. He just learns, but he learns how he wants to learn.
“He’s our navigator. Whenever we go anywhere he’s working out the miles and the amount of diesel we’re putting in the truck and how much it’s costing. He does all of that and he’ll just do it because he wants to do it, that’s how he learns.
“He understands different languages, he’s understanding Spanish way more than I am. He’s absolutely thriving.
“They’re covering Maths, they’re covering Geography as we travel, History as we’re going around. It’s all covered. It just gets covered by living.
“We follow their interests. If they want to look something up or research something then we’ll do that. So we just listen to them and engage with them.
“All you need to do is be engaged with your child. Just listen to your child, be engaged, be connected, they will learn. They are learning all of the time. You just need to sit and pay attention really. That’s our belief.
“It was definitely the best decision without a doubt. I wish we’d done it sooner. I just think we should have never sent our youngest to school but we didn’t know he was autistic.”
Since living off-grid, the 45-year-old has started documenting her family’s journey on an Instagram account, @neurodivergentlifeontheroad, and using her platform to raise awareness for Autism with PDA.
Angie said that not everybody in her life understands her decision to take her children out of school, with many concerned about her children’s socialisation.
I LIVE IN A HORSEBOX AFTER MY CANCER DIAGNOSIS
BY DONNA SMILEY & MATTHEW BARBOUR
CLOSING the door on our home of 15 years, my husband Mark and I drove away with mixed emotions.
But when we got to our new home overlooking the glorious Devon hills, we felt excited for the next chapter in our lives.
Our new home was far from ordinary – we’d swapped our three-bedroom house and the crippling mortgage that came with it for a horsebox van!
Following my cancer diagnosis, we wanted to make the most of whatever time I had left, travelling the UK in our new home on wheels.
Since getting together in 2001, after meeting through friends, Mark, now 52, and I had worked hard to give ourselves a good life.
I taught horticulture in a local prison, while Mark was a civil servant, so we earned decent wages, but we’d stretched ourselves with the mortgage on our cottage in Tiverton, Devon, and never had any money left over for holidays.
Instead, we went camping in the UK, as we both loved the outdoors.
Then, in June 2016, I noticed my left nipple was inverted, and after having an ultrasound, mammogram and a biopsy, I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.
We were shell-shocked and devastated, but my consultant was so positive, saying: “We’ll beat this.”
My diagnosis made us reassess everything.
Read the full story here.
She said: “We face judgement but we’ve also met more people that are all home educating their kids or living off grid.
“Those people are gone because they don’t understand us and now we’ve met a whole load of new people.
“We lost a lot of people and it’s been hard and it can be really lonely. But we’ve always said it’s the best for the boys. The boys are thriving and nobody can question that, nobody. So that’s all that matters to us.
“Our eldest is already talking about his van. He wants to get a van so when he’s old enough he can travel with his mates.
“He’s so confident in himself and approaching adults. He’s not just interacting with kids his own age like they do when they’re in school. You know, they’re in a class of 30 kids all the same, they speak when they’re spoken to and they’re all a bit shy.
“He’s got a massive circle of friends. He’s more sociable now because he’s not restricted to just socialising in that small circle.
“When he was at school he wouldn’t go up to an adult and speak to an adult. He wasn’t confident within himself, whereas now, because he’s out in the world, he sees all walks of life, he sees everybody, he’ll speak confidently.
“Our eldest is dyslexic and he’s got ADHD but he’s massively into art and design and skateboarding. He’s a sponsored skateboarder. Since he came out of school, he’s got a sponsorship for skateboarding.
“He always struggled because he was dyslexic but he was more academically behind.
“He liked school actually, he just ended up getting out because it was easier and we could travel. But he wasn’t struggling as much.
“Some parents don’t even get that. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea and it’s not how everybody thinks you should live but it works for us and it is what we want.
“We wouldn’t go back. I can’t even imagine it.”
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