A vast proportion of teachers seem to be heading to Cornwall for their holidays this summer, all of us resigned to being caught up in the supreme mother of South West gridlocks.

It’s going to take us many extra hours - days even - to nudge slowly forwards to our destination. The “doing it overnight” option could turn out to be just as frustrating, so often have I heard it suggested.

Cornwall is utterly hopeless in this respect, what with their only having bothered to build one major East-West road across it. It’s a straggling, awkward-looking peninsula, inconveniently shaped like some gnarled scrap of paper we retrieve from the school photocopier - after it, too, has decided to opt for a merciless logjam. 

But maybe there is a way that we teachers can escape the seemingly endless torpor of that A30 procession through Devon and Cornwall. Maybe we can use that snail’s-pace tailback to get out of our cars and help nearby young passengers catch up with their lost learning. 

Covid catch-up: Beaming through drivers’ windscreens

After all, they will all be sitting there, bored with their phones and just longing for some teacher to come along and help.

Yes, yes. I know it’s supposed to be our break from all that, but surely anything is better than just sitting and fuming inside the car? It’s not going to be the nice, relaxing part of the holiday, is it? And there’s money to be made. 

So we escape from our cars (assuming there’s someone else at the wheel to edge the vehicle forwards, as and when) and offer all those parent-drivers what we might call the POLDARC course for their child or children. 

Suitably inspired by the name of the heroic Cornish character with the big hair and pectorals, this stands for Programme Of Learning During A Road Crawl.  

We would work like those screenwash people, beaming through drivers’ windscreens and brightly offering “Covid catch-up?” What kind of parent is going to say no?

Instead of their having to listen to children in the back whining about how long the journey’s taking, those children simply wind down their windows, collect any learning materials from the teacher, and take part in a megaphone-enhanced half-hour lesson. At £10 a child, say? 

Maths, English and science on the A30

For it to cover the full range, it would need a fair amount of coordinating.  Teachers with their particular key-stage skills and specialisms would need to know exactly where along the A30 they should get out and perform. 

For example, the stretch around Okehampton might be the place for suitably trained teachers to get out and deliver a key stage 2 maths session. Question one: “If a car is averaging two miles an hour…” 

A few miles further, the Bratton Clovelly junction could be the location for some key stage 1 English teaching, with key stage 4 science teachers maybe doing their stuff just before Launceston.

There may not be room for absolutely everything on the A30, despite its length and duration. Maybe the A30 should just cover the core maths, English and science courses.

Parents may have to turn off and join the slow trail to Newquay to find music and PE lessons. The St Ives road could specialise in the creative arts, and the A39 for Truro could perhaps be devoted to modern languages.  

There would be certificates, with children getting a POLDARC award for each course attended. 

All of which is no less real or visionary than keeping schools open in holidays or extending the school day and expecting this to make any real difference to anything. I am just amazed that some wizard at the DfE hasn’t already thought of this. 

Stephen Petty is head of humanities at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, Oxfordshire