A gathering place for Swedes in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

Our Ambition

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.

Introduction to curriculum

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.