Mum decides that world travel is better than school for daughter

Rachael Robinson was terrified when her five-year-old daughter, Maggie Vaughan, tripped and fell down the stairs last year. The 37-year-old said Maggie was walking down the stairs at home when the youngster fell forward, her head on the valve of a cast iron radiator. The mum-of-one said Maggie was immediately knocked unconscious and she shouted upstairs to her partner, Mike Vaughan, to call an ambulance. Paramedics rushed her to Manchester Children's Hospital by ambulance where she was put to sleep to have a CT scan.

Maggie had fractured her skull and cervical - or upper - spine and had cut her head from the impact - but after a five-day stay in hospital, miraculously she was able to go home. After Maggie made a recovery through gruelling rehab, the family went back into their old routines. However the accident made them realise they want to make a dramatic change as the accident had 'put things into perspective. So Mike quit his job and the couple took Maggie out of school so that the family can travel together and “world school” her.

Rachael, from Manchester, said: “Your life just flashes before your eyes because you just don't know if she's going to wake up. It just changed everything for us and we wanted to show her how grateful we were and we wanted to show her the world so from that point travelling felt like a really good option.

“I'm sure it will resonate with so many parents. You're working Monday to Friday, your kid goes to wraparound care, they go to school. You get the sh*tty start and the end of the day. They're tired in the morning, they're tired at night. At the weekends they're trying to fit into your life. All that humdrum and monotony of life, we just wanted to be in a position where we could feel like we were actually living and we wanted to show her there's a world outside what she knows.

“During the summer holidays, again we were still working and she was going to holiday clubs and we were like, ‘what are we doing? We've slipped back into everyday life and not really had a chance to take stock and be as grateful as we genuinely are to still have Maggie here’.

“We'd seen a video and we were like, ‘why don't we do that? Why don't we go travelling?’ We spoke to the school about it and they helped us with resources. Since we've started travelling we've started communicating over social media with other world schooling families. We felt really confident that we weren't going to put her education at a detriment but enrich it so much more than a five-year-old probably knows at this point.”

It was one morning last December when Maggie's accident happened, just as they were preparing to enjoy Christmas.

Rachael said: “In the morning we came down for breakfast and as we were walking down the stairs Maggie fell down a number of steps. I'll never forget it. She went straight out cold. She was unconscious. I shouted upstairs to Mike to call an ambulance and I don't really remember how long it took to come.

“If you put all of the paramedics in a line up I wouldn't be able to tell you who was there. The only person I remember was the air ambulance doctor. As soon as he walked into the room I just knew that I felt safe. I've said to people he was like some angel or something that I just instantly felt okay. Thankfully for us there wasn't a bleed on the brain but she had sustained a fracture in her head. They kept her on a spinal board for 72 hours because we had to wait to see what damage had been done to the spine.

“The feeling of not being able to hug my daughter for three days was absolutely heartbreaking. You're just living on adrenaline, not sleeping. She came away with a fractured skull, a fractured cervical spine and a very superficial cut on her foot and her head. Obviously this is awful, but in the grand scheme of things we felt so incredibly lucky as it could have been one inch closer to something or one more step and it all could have gone the other way.

“For weeks, maybe even months after, every time I got to the top of our stairs, I could envision this ice rink. The stairs felt like ice to me, like I was going to slip. It was awful.”

To say thank you to the ambulance staff that helped Maggie, Mike raised £1,500 for them through completing a 100-mile cycle in London.

After being inspired by others on social media, the family decided to use the money they had been saving for a kitchen renovation to take Maggie out of school and travel the world.

Since leaving the UK on October 22, 2024, they have visited the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Indonesia and hope to travel for at least nine months. The family have been documenting their travels on their Instagram account @magpiesadventures and blog www.magpiesadventures.com.

Rachael said: “Once Maggie had her rehab she wasn't kept off school but she was only allowed to do certain things. She couldn't walk down corridors, she couldn't participate in group activities, she was very wrapped in cotton wool for three months. That was a real pivotal part of her development because she had just started reception three months before.

“She wasn't able to be as involved as she could or wanted to be. Anybody who knows Maggie knows she's the most confident, social person. She gets FOMO, she wants to be around everything so that was pretty tough for her.”

However now they are travelling, Rachael says Maggie's education has continued - but this time from experiences rather than in a classroom.

Rachael said: “We've been sending weekly videos to her school class and her friends so she doesn't feel like she's missing them. We've done elephant safaris, we've done leopard safaris. We've snorkelled with sharks and turtles. We're just educating her around the world rather than in a classroom. She's having an amazing time, it's her life and we're just living in it at the moment.”

While they travel, a friend is staying at their house and looking after it for them. Rachael, who used to work as a personal assistant at a yoga studio, was between jobs when they left for their trip but Mike made the decision to leave his job.

Rachael said: “I was doing some freelance stuff and I've just qualified as a yoga teacher so it was an easy decision for me. My partner had been where he was working for over 10 years and one of the considerations at first was can you do your job abroad? But actually it was like we don't want to work, we want to enjoy this time, we want to live so he made the decision that he can have some time out to think about what he wants to do next and I can do the same.

“On the whole I think people have been really excited and really happy for us. It definitely feels like the right decision and we've been so grateful. It's made me realise how much you can sometimes take for granted living and thinking about the next day of work or the next weekend you've got. It puts it all into perspective so much.”