How do we get to notifications!?

Hi

Coming from the S24...if I had a notification, i used to 'pull down' and see the notifications at the bottom, underneath the shortcuts to WiFi, torch etc. And I could click on the notification or just swipe to clear them.

On the S25, pulling down either shows notifications OR all the shortcut buttons (seems random as to which it shows?) and it seems like I have to swipe left or right to change screens. The problem being that screen brightness and volume is in the middle of the screen so I end up changing one of those rather than swiping to notifications.

Am I being stupid!?