A gathering place for Swedes in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
The Swedish School in Washington, DC was founded in the 1970s and today has students aged 0-18. The school is a part-time school that has 30 teaching sessions per school year and provides instruction in supplementary Swedish. The school has become a fixture for the Swedes in the area. We have seven classes, as well as a playgroup for the very youngest.
The school is far ahead, both academically and in terms of size. In terms of the number of students eligible for state grants (students must be 6 years or older and have at least one parent who has Swedish citizenship to qualify for grants), our school was ranked 17th in 2015 out of 135 schools worldwide that teach supplementary Swedish.
The school also has a high school class, for students between the ages of 13-17, which is quite unique. Most of our “sister schools” in North America lose students when the children reach the age of 12.
The school is owned and operated as a non-profit organization that parents automatically become members of when they enroll their child in the school. The school's formal name is The Swedish School for Children, Inc. The school is registered as a non-profit organization in Virginia.
The association's board is elected from among the school's parents at the annual meeting held in September each year. The board also organizes a parents' meeting each spring semester.
All children who have “Swedish as a living language at home” are welcome. The wording is from the Swedish National Agency for Education and is a requirement for the school to receive government funding for school-age students. This means that at least one family member - it could be mom, dad or grandma - speaks Swedish with the student at home. Then the student gets the support they need to keep up with the lessons, have fun and understand. Our teaching lasts for 2.5 hours per week and it requires that the student also receive support with the language through use at home in order for the student to learn Swedish.
The school follows the Swedish National Agency for Education's curriculum for supplementary education for Swedish students abroad and also has its own curriculum.
Our Ambition
The ambition is to motivate students to develop their knowledge of the Swedish language and about Sweden - social studies, history, geography, culture, traditions and customs. Teaching in the older classes is based largely on the art of storytelling. We have skilled teachers who can awaken the curiosity and desire to learn in young people. By telling about the fates of individual, often famous, Swedes, Sweden's history and society are brought to life.
For example, do you know the inventor John Ericsson and the bomber Anton Nilsson?
Reading is at the center of learning at the school and we have a large library, with the latest in children's literature in Sweden.
We are proud of our little Swedish world at school and it is nourished, literally, by coffee at 10:30 every Saturday, when we meet around homemade bread and coffee.
You are always welcome to visit us at the school to see if it is a good fit for your family. Please contact the chairperson or principal.
Welcome!
Orientation topics
Students should be able to immerse themselves in orientation topics and participate in speaking and writing in the lessons. The teaching is adapted to the students' age and level of Swedish.
Natural history deserves special mention. We focus on the interest in the nature that surrounds us, that is, the American one. (Students do not necessarily have to love mountains they have never experienced.)
Social studies deals with how Swedish society works, such as governance and the labor market. This subject is particularly suitable for the oldest groups.
History lessons begin in grade 3, with the Vikings, and each grade has its own time period. The oldest group studies industrialization and the rise of the welfare state.
Students usually attend the same class for two or three years (we have 6 “year courses” compared to the regular school’s 12). To keep things from getting boring for the students, the teaching is organized into two- or three-year blocks, where the sub-modules are taught over a period of two or three years. This also makes it possible to include more material in the teaching. The teachers keep track of which students have studied what and thus offer a comprehensive education.
Overall goals
The curriculum for the Swedish School for Children has two main goals:
partly to promote students' language skills in Swedish,
and secondly, to strengthen their Swedish cultural identity, by instilling an interest in the country's history and in today's Swedish society.
We achieve this by teaching the language and in the language.
The teaching revolves around the idea that the student learns most effectively if:
the teaching is interesting and exciting
age-appropriate topics
Swedish is adapted to the individual student's prior knowledge, but also challenges each student.
Our students' language skills vary a lot, even within the same age groups, and we have to partially individualize our teaching.
The goal is to gradually build up the students' skills, so that they can speak, read and write Swedish relatively unhindered when they reach the school's oldest class (13-17 years old), and have a lively interest in the Swedish (and Scandinavian) cultural community with all that it entails.
Our lessons should be sometimes serious, sometimes fun, but always engaging. The curriculum for the different grades is interconnected, from the youngest group to the oldest.
Due to the limited lesson time, the classes have a compressed curriculum in Swedish history, geography and social studies. These subjects, the orientation subjects, are also used as an instrument in the language learning itself. The students learn in Swedish.
In the pure language part, students learn basic grammar rules - practically applied in the younger groups, through theoretical comparison in the older groups.
Vocabulary is woven into both the language section and the orientation subjects. Reading and writing skills are cultivated primarily through the orientation subjects, although many writing exercises are intended to make students aware of grammar, sentence structure, spelling and the importance of having a nuanced vocabulary.