The wider curriculum.

History

We teach history at local, national and global levels, making links to our own homes and lives where possible to help children understand the past and the present.

Years 1 and 2 learn about the Great Fire of London. Through Key Stage 2 the periods widen: the Stone Age, the Romans, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, the Victorians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, early Islamic civilisation, the Maya and the Second World War. In Summer 1, Year 3's Super Shoreham topic walks the river and compares old town with new. Across the school, each year group covers a National Curriculum period in depth, with primary sources, museum visits where they're available, and writing tasks that ask children to think like historians.

Geography

Fieldwork-led where it can be — the river, the beach, the Meads — and globally aware. Children build a mental map of place that starts at home and zooms out.

Reception and KS1 know our local area through walks and observation. Year 3 compares the UK with Mexico (People and Places); Year 4 covers the water cycle and rivers; Year 5 studies mountains; Year 6 travels further. Map skills, fieldwork and locational knowledge run through every year.

Art & design

Sketchbooks every year. Children develop technique progressively — drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture — and study artists across cultures and periods.

Each year group focuses on named artists and techniques, with sketchbooks that travel with children as a record of their growth. Art is explicitly taught, not just decorative, and children's work is celebrated in displays around the school.

Design & technology

Designing, making, evaluating. Children build real things — from Year 3's pneumatic ice creams to Year 5's bridges and Year 6's cam toys — and learn to iterate.

Projects combine design thinking with practical skills: cutting, joining, finishing, cooking. Food technology is part of every year group. Children plan, prototype, evaluate and improve — habits that transfer well into science and beyond.

Music

Sing, play, listen, compose. Music is taught by class teachers as part of the curriculum, with whole-class recorder teaching as a particular focus.

Learning the recorder builds the basics of music: reading music, rhythm, pitch, coordination and breath control, which help children go on to other instruments. Singing runs through every week, with KS1 and KS2 singing assemblies, and Miss Woodward runs the choir club. Children listen to music from across cultures and periods and learn to talk about it. Lessons use the school's music room, which has a range of percussion instruments and a piano, alongside a large set of recorders and a small selection of string instruments.

Modern Foreign Languages — French

From Year 3, children learn French — speaking, listening, reading and writing — building toward simple conversation and short written texts by Year 6.

Lessons are oral-led in the early years, with songs, games and routines. Reading and writing follow once children have a feel for the sound and rhythm. The aim is enjoyment and confidence, not perfection — French becomes a window onto another culture.

Religious education

Children learn about the major world religions and worldviews — what believers believe, how they live, what their places of worship are like — and explore questions of meaning.

RE at Swiss Gardens follows the West Sussex Agreed Syllabus. Children study Christianity in depth and engage with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism across the school. The aim is informed respect and the ability to ask big questions thoughtfully.

Parents and carers have the right to withdraw their child from all or part of RE. If you're thinking about this, please talk to the Headteacher first so we can explain what your child would be learning.

PSHE — Personal, Social, Health and Economic education

The everyday curriculum of feelings, friendships, healthy bodies, money, online safety and citizenship. Taught explicitly, woven into the rest of school life.

PSHE lessons cover age-appropriate topics each half-term, with consistent threads: relationships, health and wellbeing, living in the wider world. Relationships and health education are statutory. Sex education is taught in Years 5 and 6; parents are told in advance and can ask to withdraw their child (see our RHSE policy). PSHE complements and supports the school's wellbeing offer.

Computing

Computational thinking, digital literacy, online safety. Children learn to use technology purposefully, understand how it works, and stay safe online.

Programming starts in Years 1 and 2 with Bee-Bots and simple coding on Rapid Router, then builds through Key Stage 2: events and actions, repetition in games, selection in quizzes and variables in games. Alongside it, children create with digital photography, painting, animation, audio and vector drawing, work with data from branching databases to spreadsheets, and learn how computer networks communicate — with online safety taught every year. We teach children to be thoughtful consumers and confident creators.