The İSTEK campus in Mersin stands in the Gökçebelen neighbourhood of the Yenişehir district and runs four stages: a preparatory year, a primary school, a middle school and an Anatolian high school. The school is one of the institutions of the İSTEK Vakfı foundation and works under the shared name İSTEK Okulları. Beyond the state curriculum the campus runs what the group calls its own difference: the Crossroads language strand, mindfulness sessions, the Second Step social and emotional programme, and robotics with coding. The school holds a projects coordination office working with eTwinning and Erasmus+, a pedagogical leadership team, a counselling service staffed separately for each stage, a measurement and assessment department and an office advising on study abroad. There is a student council and there are school sports teams.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · PYP · National programme
Admissions Entry to the preparatory year is by a preliminary interview and in order of application. Entry to grades one, two, three and four of the primary school is by pre-assessment and in order of application. Entry to grades five, six, seven and eight of the middle school is by the school's own entrance examination, the İSTEK Kabul Sınavı. Entry to the preparatory year of the Anatolian high school is by the national LGS score together with the İSTEK Kabul Sınavı; entry to later high-school grades is by the same entrance examination after a preliminary interview.
Stages and year groups Four stages on one campus: a preparatory year, a primary school, a middle school and an Anatolian high school with a preparatory year of its own. Each stage has its own building: the preparatory year occupies 1,500 m², the primary and middle schools together 4,000 m², the high school 2,000 m². The school does not give the number of classes or of parallel groups.
Address Gökçebelen Mahallesi, 33195. Sokak No: 2, 33115 Yenişehir, Mersin
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · PYP · authorised programmeİSTEK Vakfı Okulları · school is part of the networkThe school's IB registry record is for the Primary Years Programme. The school keeps two pages on the PYP, a general one and one inside its primary school section, and describes the programme as a transdisciplinary framework for children aged three to twelve: learning is shaped by themes of global significance that cross the boundaries of separate subjects, and the school undertakes to see and meet a child's different needs - physical, social, intellectual, aesthetic and cultural. The school does not publish its IB code.
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
IBInternational Baccalaureate
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: PYP (ages 3-12). PYP is the primary stage, ages 3 to 12. It is not a set of subjects but a frame for the whole school: learning is built around lines of inquiry, and there are no exams at the end.
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.
İSTEK Vakfı Okullarıschool network
The schools of the Istanbul foundation İSTEK İstanbul Eğitim ve Kültür Vakfı, established by Bedrettin Dalan in 1985; the first school of the foundation its pages name as the Semiha Şakır high school in Göztepe. The foundation exists separately from the schools and holds, besides them, Yeditepe University, opened in 1996: that is how it describes its own chain - from kindergarten to university and to work. A school, for the foundation, means a separately licensed institution of one stage, and at the high school level it divides them by type as well; its own count is 22 kindergartens, 22 primary schools, 22 middle schools, 20 high schools and 14 Fen high schools, that is, about a hundred institutions, and this is a count by stage on the same campuses rather than by address. The number of kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools is the same - 22 each - while there are two fewer high schools.
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.
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 pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Art studio · Makerspace
Campus: 45,000 m² of open ground and more than 15,000 m² under roof: by the school's own account the largest education campus in Mersin. Besides the teaching buildings the site holds an ecology house with a garden of 1,900 m², a 350 m² traffic education track, a 900 m² open ceremony ground and café areas for breaks. Classrooms are fitted with visual and audio technology.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
There is no data for this section yet.
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%)72 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 at the median60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data85 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 Value for money (6%) scored at the median71 "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
Mersin, Turkey · Private