İstanbul Marmara Okulları

It accredits international schools and is a paying association at the same time. It examines governance and ownership, the curriculum, teaching, student wellbeing, staff and premises; a team of volunteers from other CIS accredited schools visits the school. Membership and accreditation are different things here, and schools confuse them more often than anything else.

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.

A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.

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: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.

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.

A private group begun in 1985 with the Çağdaşım kindergarten in Maltepe in Istanbul; the site names no holding and no foundation above the schools - there is the name of the group, a message from the founder and a message from the chief executive. Three campuses: the Istanbul one in Maltepe, which moved into its present building in 2002-2003; Bodrum, the first campus outside Istanbul, opened in 1997; and Kocaeli-Kartepe, the third, opened in 2017. On each campus the kindergarten, the primary and middle schools and the high schools stand as separate institutions, so there are more units than addresses. The group dates its CIS accreditation and its right to award the International Baccalaureate diploma to 2008; of programmes it names Erasmus+, the European Youth Parliament, the International Youth Award and the Fulbright and Rotary exchanges.

What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.