← Back to the rankingKeystone International Schools
Istanbul, Turkey · est. 2011 · Private
Illustration · Istanbul
Keystone International Schools was founded in 2011 and calls itself the first Canadian off-shore school in Turkey. It teaches the curriculum of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, with French as a second language across primary, middle and high school, and takes a child from kindergarten at the age of three through to grade 12. The school states that its work is to deliver education in a student-centred environment and to bring pupils to global competence and twenty-first century skills. The year rests on project based learning, academic and applied courses and external assessments such as the MAP Growth test. Lunches are cooked in-house from seasonal ingredients, with no pork, no processed food and no genetically modified products, and a vegetarian option is always there.
Key facts
Programmes
Canadian programme
Languages of instruction
English
About the fees Fees are quoted in US dollars and already include applicable taxes and examination costs such as MAP testing. Lunch is included for everyone except high school, where pupils bring food from home, buy lunch from the school or take food from the school cafeteria. Books for grades 1 to 6 are bought from the school because they are sourced from Canada; from grade 7 books are rented from the school, which the school explains as a matter of equity.
Admissions The school asks families to come to it first: to see the classrooms during school hours or, for those abroad, to talk over a video meeting, and to think beforehand about what matters most to them in a school. Then the registration form is completed, in person or online, and a family that wants to move faster may register directly without the tour. After the application the school arranges examinations and interviews appropriate to the child's grade, to judge academic readiness and fit with the school culture. On enrolment the parent signs the student registration agreement required by the Turkish private schools regulations.
Stages and year groups There are four stages: kindergarten for ages three to six, primary school for grades 1 to 6, middle school for grades 7 to 9 and high school for grades 10 to 12. Pupils in grades 1 to 12 are registered with the ministry of education of Prince Edward Island.
Address Küçük Çamlıca Mahallesi, Gülhan Sokak No: 1/1-2, 34660 Üsküdar, İstanbul
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
ACS WASC · accreditationRound Square · part of the associationThe school is listed in the ACS WASC registry, and it announced the completion of accreditation itself in a separate news item. Its curriculum is Canadian, from the province of Prince Edward Island: pupils in grades 1 to 12 are registered with that province's ministry of education and receive a Canadian student ID, and they leave with a Canadian high school diploma. Instruction is in English, with French learned as an additional language. The school names its own external checks: the MAP Growth test and the DELF examination in French. The school is also listed by Round Square, an international association of schools; that is a membership rather than an inspection, and it carries no accreditation threshold. The registry record is written on two brands at once, Keystone and Kilittasi, while the school's own site never mentions the name Kilittasi.
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
ACS WASCAccrediting Commission for Schools of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
An American regional accreditation of the institution, working since 1962 and covering some 5,500 schools in California, the Pacific and Asia. It judges the whole school: a self-study, then a team visit. It gives the same status to supplementary and virtual programmes, so the category of an entry is worth checking separately.
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 →Round SquareRound Square
A network of about three hundred schools in some fifty countries, built on the ideas of the educationalist Kurt Hahn: internationalism, democracy, environment, adventure, leadership, service. On joining, representatives of the network visit the school and write a report, and the school then spends up to two years as a candidate.
What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to the network. The check on joining is a real one, but what is examined is fidelity to the six principles rather than the quality of teaching, safeguarding or governance. Reports are not published, and the five-year review is one the school carries out on itself. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Canadian programme
The programme of one of the Canadian provinces, with that province's own secondary school diploma. The province licenses the school and requires its teachers to hold Canadian certification.
What this means for this school. Which province stands behind this school, and how far its licence runs, is not stated here. Each province keeps its own register of schools abroad; a common Canadian one does not exist.
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
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Teaching staff
There is no data for this section yet.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
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 on disclosed data55 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 data65 Clubs and activities (8%) scored at the median70 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 5 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