← Back to homeÖzel SEV İlkokulu, Çamlıca Yerleşkesi
Istanbul, Turkey · est. 1997 · Private
Illustration · Istanbul
Özel SEV İlkokulu is the primary school of Özel SEV Okulları, standing in Küçük Çamlıca, in Istanbul's Üsküdar district. The school has worked since 1997 and is held by the Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı foundation, set up by graduates of the American colleges of Üsküdar, İzmir, Tarsus and Talas, and since the 2023-2024 school year the primary level has occupied this campus separately from the preschool and middle levels, which stand in Çekmeköy. Teaching is in Turkish, on the ministry program, enriched with STEM strands, philosophy for children and the school's own WISE well-being program; English follows the European scale and is taught by Turkish, English-speaking and international teachers, and library lessons run in two languages. Children learn music as a whole class in grades 1 and 2, and from grade 3 they choose an instrument - violin, guitar or piano. A place at the school is won by a lottery drawn before a notary, at any of the four grades; on Wednesdays lessons are set without homework, and classes are kept at 24 children. The school has 59 full-time teachers, with twelve years of experience on average, and one in four holds a master's degree. The amount of the fee cannot be learned from the site: the school announces it in a separate document for each school year, and the link to that document does not open.
Key facts
Languages of instruction
Turkish
About the fees The school sets the fee once a year: “her yıl 31 Mayıs tarihine kadar bir sonraki akademik yılının okul ücreti belirlenir ve hem basın hem de web sitesi aracılığıyla velilerimize duyurulur”. Re-registration takes place in May: the parent comes to the school, pays the first part of the fee and signs a form for the remaining parts. The school posts the amount in a separate document for the 2026-2027 school year, but the link to that document from the page about fees does not open.
Admissions Entry to the primary school is by lottery, and the lottery covers all four grades: “İlkokul 1, 2, 3 ve 4. sınıflar için kura başvuruları alınır”. Applications are made online within the announced dates, each candidate is given a number, the lottery is drawn before a notary, and its results make up a main list and a waiting list; the school publishes both. No one has any advantage, twins included. The child is not assessed before the lottery: the introduction to the counseling service comes only after enrollment. A transferring child is put in a class where there is a place, and if there are several, the counselors and the level's deputy principal choose the class by his academic, social and emotional characteristics and by the balance of girls and boys in the class. Whoever gets into the school stays through the end of grade 8 in the middle school of the same school.
Stages and year groups Grades to grade 4. A primary school from grade 1 to grade 4 on its own campus in Çamlıca; the ministry's list of private educational institutions shows one license at this address - ÖZEL S.E.V İLKOKULU, type “Özel Türk İlkokulu”. The preschool and middle levels of the same school stand in Çekmeköy. There are 24 children in a class and eight lessons in a day: grades 1 and 2 have breakfast with their teacher and start at 8:20, grades 3 and 4 start at 8:05 and have breakfast later, and pick-up ends between 15:15 and 15:30. Students are assessed without written tests: teacher observation and the assessment of their work take their place, and written tests begin only in grade 5, already in the middle school. In the transition year, grade 4, the Ready for Next Step transition program runs.
Address Küçük Çamlıca Mah., Çilehane Yolu Cad. No: 6/2, Üsküdar, İstanbul
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
CIS · accreditationSEV · school is part of the networkschool 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
CISCouncil of International Schools
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.
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Schools of the Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı, the Health and Education Foundation: the foundation was established in 1968 by graduates of four American schools in Turkey - Üsküdar American Academy, American Collegiate Institute, Tarsus American College and Talas American Middle School, - is governed by a board of trustees and a board of directors on a voluntary basis and exists separately from the schools. The foundation names eight institutions of its own: four American colleges - Üsküdar American Academy, American Collegiate Institute, Tarsus American College and SEV American College, - three Turkish SEV schools, in Istanbul, Izmir and Tarsus, and the Redhouse publishing house, set up as a separate company, SEV Yayıncılık. The cities are Istanbul, Izmir and Tarsus; the Istanbul kindergarten and middle school have moved to a campus in Çekmeköy.
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 poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓LibraryA library with lessons in two languages: the English lessons are led by a foreign library teacher, from books chosen to match the program, and the Turkish ones by the class teachers. The library has computers for project work, and for the youngest there is a section of toys of book characters that can be taken home. The school holds meetings with authors of children's books.
✓CateringA canteen where children are fed three times a day; the kitchen is run by a contractor.
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Makerspace
Campus: The campus in Çamlıca holds only the primary school; the preschool and middle levels of the same school stand in Çekmeköy. For families the campus is open on the school's presentation days, and in March additionally on weekdays after lessons.
Clubs and activities: Wilderness survival · Origami · Cake decorating · Cartooning · Fencing · Gymnastics
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
✓Number of teachers59
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
59 full-time teachers, with 12 years of experience on average, 22 of them with a master's degree, and foreign teachers making up 12 percent of the staff. English is taught by Turkish and English-speaking teachers together with international ones, and the English library lessons are led by a foreign library teacher. There is also a separate academic enrichment department, which plans work for those who need it.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
✓Nurse or medical roomThe medical service is a doctor and one full-time nurse on each of the two campuses; the school clinic is run by Acıbadem Mobil Sağlık. The doctor sits on the crisis committee and in the first aid group, and teaches first aid to the school's staff and to the school transport drivers. Parents fill in each child's health details at the start of the year in the school system.
✓CounsellorThe primary school has its own counseling service, with a page of its own; the counselors both choose the class for transferring children and run individual support programs.
✓Child protection policyThe school has its own child protection policy, built on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and on the standards of the international child protection council. It applies to all the school's employees and to contractors' employees, distinguishes a preventive line from a responsive one, and is described outright as a means of orientation rather than of investigation.
✓Staff trainingUnder the same policy, only a teacher may help younger children with changing clothes and with the toilet: staff who are not teachers are not involved in this, and a child who asks is directed to a teacher. All students are insured against any incident during school hours. The primary school holds the “Beyaz Bayrak”, “Beslenme Dostu Okul” and “Yeşil Bayrak” certificates; the school runs the eco-schools program and keeps an eco-team of students from every class.
·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 data75 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data76 Value for money (6%) scored at the median64 "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.
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