My Story

Hi, I’m Carlee, qualified teacher, mum, wife, and full-time van-lifer, currently travelling Australia with my husband Corey and our two children, Josie (10) and Jaxon (6).

It wasn’t that long ago that we had finally sat down late on a Sunday afternoon following yet another hectic week when Corey and I came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to do it anymore - the day-after-day, week-after-week of what felt like Groundhog Day: work, sleep, eat, repeat. We were done with never having enough time. The rewarding yet demanding jobs, the side hustles, general household upkeep - all while trying to be ever-present parents. We’d had enough and knew that something had to give - there had to be more to life. So, where to from here? Well, we came up with a 12-month plan to be out of our 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom acreage property and to move into a caravan. It may be smaller in size, but life has definitely upsized.

Fast forward about 10 months and we were in the final stages of our plan and getting ready to leave for our 2-year lap of Australia. When considering education options for our children, my husband and I agreed that I shouldn’t continue to wear my ‘teacher hat’ and simply shift from work / teacher life to the van - we all needed a break. Because of this, we were confident that we were going to enrol our kids in distance education. We wanted a one-stop-shop where all of the teaching resources, learning materials, assessment, marking and reporting were taken care of. We were looking for quality yet simplicity.

We first looked into distance education, completely convinced that this was the solution for us and our needs, but that very quickly changed. I found that distance education (or at least the 10+ providers I researched) was essentially ‘school at home’, except with a hefty price tag. We found that it meant rigid study schedules, a requirement to be online on set days and times, strict due dates, and a study routine that demanded a significant amount of time in front of a laptop - this did not align with our travelling goals at all, nor did it provide the flexibility we needed while on the road. This is when we decided to home school. It was the only option that allowed us to make decisions about our routine, timelines, and the content our children would study, and when. We couldn’t make sense of being parked up near somewhere like Port Arthur or Uluru and our children having to learn about Ancient Egypt (for example) - it seemed crazy!

Admittedly, I had left looking into home schooling to the last minute - this was very unlike me as I like to be organised. I find it lightens the mental load when I have a good plan. You see, I thought for sure there’d be an abundance of home schooling resources, programs, and plans out there readily available for people like us - travelling families stepping outside of mainstream education just for a little while. Oh, how I was wrong.

As our children had previously been enrolled in mainstream education, and because we have full intentions of re-enrolling in a year or two once we finish our lap, I knew without a doubt that we needed to follow the Australian Curriculum - this was a no-brainer. The Australian Curriculum outlines the skills, knowledge, and capabilities students are expected to develop and achieve at each year level. It is very explicit and undeniably has a sequential order - an order that you can’t expect kids to miss chunks of and then jump right back into with the rest of their peers once they return from something like a lap. The Australian Curriculum is purposefully designed to build on the foundations of previous years. It was obvious to me that missing a year or two had the potential to be detrimental to my children when they re-enrol and I couldn’t bear the thought of returning only for them to struggle academically.

I began looking into options that support home schooling families. There are programs out there that provide aspects of what we were seeking, but I could not find anything specifically for travelling families or that provided a complete overview. What I did find was plenty of information for long-term / permanent home schooling families. I also found online programs that could supplement teaching and learning however, these seemed to only cover aspects of the curriculum – essentially, just a resource. In addition to this, a lot of these online programs allowed parents to pick and choose the units their child would complete with no real plan or information about the relevance to the Australian Curriculum provided. I wondered, “How can I decide what my child should be studying when I don’t even know what they’re meant to be doing?” Not only this, but I found some weren’t even Australian based, that content was often ‘trickle fed’, and that parents were only given a little piece of the puzzle at a time. This seemed to be at the other end of the spectrum when compared to distance education!

When I read the responses to common questions on Facebook posted in home school pages and travelling families’ groups, I repeatedly saw the same advice: “just focus on x, y, and z” or “just do this or that”. Personally, I couldn’t make decisions about what curriculum content to cull without first seeing the complete picture - I’m the sort of person who needs to make informed decisions, particularly when it comes to something as important as my kids’ schooling. I needed confidence in the education path we would choose for our children while on the road. While people replying to the “how much of the curriculum should we cover?” questions had good intentions, I knew that I needed to decide this for myself based on the development of my own children, their own unique learning goals, and our own travelling lifestyle .

I felt completely on my own. There was plenty of great information out there for long-term home schooling families, but very little for the temporary travelling home schooler. To my surprise, and despite my best efforts, I continued to come up empty-handed when trying to find a quality, professionally designed, ready-made learning plan or program for home schooling children who are travelling and who have every intention of returning to mainstream school.

I wanted our kids’ learning to align with the places we were travelling to and, in turn for them to engage in rich learning experiences where the focus was on learning through doing - rather than sitting in front of a screen for hours each day. I also wanted to ensure that our travels aligned with the curriculum (the current Australian Version 9 and not some outdated or overseas curriculum) and were a valuable learning experience, not something that disadvantaged them. More importantly, I wanted our kids’ transition out of school and later, back into school, to be as stress-free as possible. For them to return from our once-in-a-lifetime experience more confident than ever. I knew that I had to create what I couldn’t find.

Following some amazing feedback on the plans I had created from our home schooling authority in my home state, and seeing the repeated questions continuing to appear on social media from families about to start their own travelling journey, I just knew that I could help - and that’s how Caravan Classroom came about.

Caravan Classroom has been designed to:

·      Break down the curriculum into a clear, practical format for home schooling on the road by providing year-level overviews and achievement standards in plain English - so parents know exactly what their child would be learning in mainstream school (our plans provide the complete picture, not just bits of it so that you can make decisions about what to include or delete).

·      Empower parents to make informed decisions about what their child will study while travelling, based on their needs, goals, and learning styles (pick and choose what areas of the curriculum you cover and when - flexibility that travelling families need).

·      Set clear, realistic, and purposeful learning goals that reflect both your child’s academic level and your family’s travel rhythm (because your child’s home-schooling journey should be personalised to their individual needs and goals. We include examples and prompts throughout explaining how to personalise your plan and make it your own).

·      Provide ideas for combining curriculum links into meaningful, real-world learning experiences - such as researching historical sites, exploring natural wonders, or learning through travel-based inquiry projects (the whole idea of travelling is to ‘change things up’, we don’t do dull, repetitive, screen-time heavy, or unnecessarily complicated and confusing learning experiences here).

·      Include links to the Australian Curriculum so parents can fact-check, explore further, and / or build confidence in their understanding (full transparency that the information included in our plans does in fact align with the current Australian curriculum).

·      Suggest hands-on, low-prep, tech-light activities that allow kids to learn by doing - without needing to be in front of a screen for hours each day (I don’t know too many van lifers who have the weight or space to carry bulky resources anyway, and we’ve considered this in our plans. While we embrace technology use, it is not our only resource).

·      Support you in balancing your child’s education with your family’s desire for freedom, flexibility, and adventure (we provide tips on establishing consistent home schooling routines that develop your child’s confidence but that also allow for flexibility to choose what, when, and where your child’s learning occurs).

Ø  No ongoing subscriptions.

Ø  No trickle-fed information.

Ø  No expensive fees.

Ø  No confusing teacher jargon.

Ø  No bulky, expensive resources that do not suit van life.

Just empowered parents, equipped with the information they need to home school confidently while travelling Australia.

At the heart of Caravan Classroom is a belief that learning should be purposeful, meaningful, and achievable - especially when your classroom moves every week. Our approach to home education is built on the principle that less is more: by focusing on what really matters, we create space for deeper learning, real-life connection, and family freedom.

Our hybrid home schooling approach blends:

·       Experiential learning - kids learn by doing, not just by watching or reading.

·       Situated practice - real learning happens in real places: at a beach, a museum, or a national park.

·       Routine with flexibility - predictable learning routines that still allow freedom to explore.

·       Mapped to the Curriculum - because you want your child’s learning to count when they go back to school.

·       Simplicity - clear plans, achievable goals, and no unnecessary overwhelm.

This is not unschooling, and it’s not traditional school at home. It’s a carefully considered approach designed for travelling families who want their child’s education to remain on track - without sacrificing the joy, freedom, and spontaneity that life on the road offers.

We support families to set realistic goals, prioritise key learning areas, and feel confident that they’re doing ‘enough’ - without overloading themselves or their children. This is about quality over quantity, meaningful engagement instead of long hours in front of a screen, and raising curious, capable learners who thrive both on the road and beyond.

We believe that having a clear, quality user-friendly plan helps ease the mental load. As parents, we all want to give our kids the best - but stepping into home schooling with good intentions but no real direction can quickly become overwhelming. It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to cover everything, everywhere, all at once when unsure. When you know exactly what's expected, you can focus on what truly matters - feeling confident in your decisions and intentional in your approach.

This is a moment where my commitment to thoughtful, high-quality planning, attention to detail, and desire not to do it all - combined with my teaching background and perspective as a home schooling, travelling caravan mum - have come together to create something I’m truly proud of. I can’t wait to share it with other travelling families like ours who are also on their home schooling journey.

You’ve got this!

Carlee x