BIS Zekeriyaköy is a private school in Sarıyer, on the northern edge of Istanbul; the legal name given on the site is Özel BIS İlkokulu, Ortaokulu ve Anadolu Lisesi. The Zekeriyaköy campus is the first of the three BIS campuses, alongside Bahçeşehir and Çamlıca Hill. It runs the early years stage and grades 1 to 12: primary and middle school stand on 8. Cadde, while the high school occupies a separate building on Kilyos Caddesi in the same district. The school describes itself as an international environment for Turkish families and puts weight on English, mathematics and science on top of the national curriculum, naming outdoor learning as a strength of the campus - gardens and open play areas, sports facilities, libraries, computer rooms and science laboratories. The same owner keeps a second division on this domain, The British School Istanbul, with its Zekeriyaköy Forest and Etiler STEAM campuses.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · National programme
Admissions The family fills in the form on the website or telephones the school; the communications department then makes contact and schedules a first visit and a meeting with the director or principal. During the visit the principal and the school counsellor meet the prospective student: those entering Year 1 take a school readiness assessment, and those entering Years 2 to 8 go through a general evaluation.
Stages and year groups Early years plus grades 1 to 12. The school describes early years as the stage up to the age of five, primary school as for children aged 6-9 and high school as for ages 14-18. Applications are accepted for pre-school and for any grade from 1 to 12. Class sizes are not published.
Address Zekeriyaköy, 8. Cadde No:7, Sarıyer, İstanbul
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · authorised programmeThe school is listed in the Cambridge International registry. Its own pages never mention Cambridge: no programmes, no stages and no examination centre number appear, and the pages on early years, primary, middle and high school describe the national curriculum strengthened by English, mathematics and science. The badge follows the registry. Separately the school states that it is audited against ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 22000, which is not a school accreditation. It also reports Candidate School status for the IB Diploma Programme; it holds no authorisation yet and no entry in the IB registry.
school is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
CambridgeCambridge International Education
Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. Which stages - from the early years programme for three-year-olds up to A-Level - this school is approved for is not stated here.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: The Zekeriyaköy campus: gardens and open-air spaces for outdoor learning, equipped sports facilities, libraries, computer rooms and science laboratories.
Clubs and activities: list on the school website
Teaching staff
There is no data for this section yet.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
✓CCTV
✓Security staff
✓Access control
✓Nurse or medical room
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)60 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data85 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%)no datathe criterion switches on once there is data about the teachers Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median65 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 6 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country
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