The school teaches in English from kindergarten to grade 12 and serves Istanbul's expatriate community. Since 2003 it has leased a former textile factory building in Ümraniye, refurbished to work as a school; the lease has been extended twice, the building can barely hold the grown student body, and from 2016 the school board and its development committee have been raising money to buy land and build a school of their own. For children whose first language is not English the school runs a separate language support programme.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary, IGCSE · AP
Admissions Admissions open in January with pre-registration for currently enrolled students. Former students returning to Istanbul register next, then families on the waiting list, and only in mid-February are the remaining places opened to the wider expatriate community in Istanbul. Every year all students, returning and new, complete a registration form for the coming year, which is used to calculate tuition. A new student completes a separate New Student Application Form before being admitted, and the admissions committee has the final approval. For admission guidelines the school asks families to write to its admissions office.
Stages and year groups One school carries every stage: elementary from kindergarten to grade 5, middle school from grade 6 to grade 8, high school from grade 9 to grade 12. Cambridge programmes run to grade 8, IGCSE in grades 9 and 10, and AP courses in grades 11 and 12.
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Primary, IGCSE · authorised programmeCollege Board · authorised programmeMSA · accreditationThe school achieved accreditation from the Middle States Association Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools in January 2011. It was awarded Cambridge examination centre status in 2006, with accreditation to examine at IGCSE, AS and A2 level, and became a Cambridge Primary centre in 2015. Its present layout, as the school describes it, is different: Cambridge programmes from kindergarten to grade 8, IGCSE in grades 9 and 10, and American AP courses in grades 11 and 12, so the leaving years run through College Board rather than A-Level. The school does not publish its Cambridge centre number.
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. At this school: Primary (ages 5-11), IGCSE (ages 14-16). Primary is the primary stage, ages 5 to 11: English, mathematics and science to Cambridge syllabuses. At the end of the stage a school may run the optional Checkpoint test, which is marked in Cambridge. IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →College BoardCollege Board, the AP programme
An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →MSAMiddle States Association of Colleges and Schools
One of the oldest American accreditations, working since 1887 in more than a hundred countries and linked to the Office of Overseas Schools of the US State Department. It judges the school as an institution across twelve areas, including finances, governance, premises and student support.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →AP
Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The domain serves a certificate the browser does not recognise, so pages will not open over the secure protocol: only the unsecured version of the site can be read.. We have asked the school for the data directly.
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 transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: A six-storey former textile factory in Ümraniye, adapted for use as a school by a group of parents. The basement holds changing rooms, a small kitchen and a large multi-purpose room with a raised stage seating a hundred and twenty. The first floor holds five elementary classrooms, the second the administration, and floors three to five the secondary departments. Play space is limited, and the school says so plainly.
Clubs and activities: list on the school website
Teaching staff
The domain serves a certificate the browser does not recognise, so pages will not open over the secure protocol: only the unsecured version of the site can be read.. We have asked the school for the data directly.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The domain serves a certificate the browser does not recognise, so pages will not open over the secure protocol: only the unsecured version of the site can be read.. We have asked the school for the data directly.
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%)75 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 data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)95 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 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 7 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
Istanbul, Turkey · Private