A bilingual school in the heart of Etiler on the European side of Istanbul, registered as Ulu Nadir. Every level follows the Turkish national curriculum (MEB); kindergarten adds The Creative Curriculum from Teaching Strategies, while primary and middle school pair MEB with an intensive English programme supported by National Geographic Learning resources. The teaching philosophy is Reggio Emilia inspired: long term projects grown from the children's own questions, the classroom arranged as a third teacher, and learning documented so families can follow it. Turkish and English are part of daily life rather than separate subjects, and the community itself is international, with children from more than 24 nationalities.
Key facts
Programmes
National programme
Languages of instruction
Turkish, English
About the fees Fees cover the intensive English programme, three meals a day - breakfast, lunch and snacks - and the atelier and outdoor programme. Bus routes run within the roughly 11 km radius set by the municipality. Exact figures depend on the year group, and the school gives them at the admissions meeting rather than on the website.
Admissions The first step is a WhatsApp message or an email; there is no online form to fill in first. Then comes a campus visit, and after it an orientation meeting with the team about the Reggio Emilia approach and about what this particular child needs - that meeting is also where the full fee schedule for the child's year group is shared. The last step is enrolment and a supported start: children joining mid year are settled in gradually rather than dropped into a full timetable. Neither Turkish nor English is required on arrival.
Stages and year groups Three levels on one campus: kindergarten for ages 3 to 6, primary school for grades 1 to 4 and middle school for grades 5 to 8. Middle school is the newest level, which means a child can stay at uNiK from age 3 through the end of grade 8 without changing schools.
Address Etiler Mahallesi, Tanburi Ali Efendi Sokak No:16, 34337 Beşiktaş, İstanbul
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
CIS · membershipThe school is listed in the registry of the Council of International Schools as a registered member. That is membership, not accreditation: no visiting evaluation stands behind it. The school names the membership itself, among the facts it publishes about its own set-up, next to the Turkish national curriculum.
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
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 belongs to this organisation but has not been through its accreditation. The difference matters: membership is usually paid for and has no external inspection behind it. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
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.
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
·Librarynot stated on the website
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Art studio
Campus: One campus in Etiler, designed with more open area than closed and furnished in natural wood treated without chemicals. Classrooms are arranged as spaces that invite exploration - light, natural materials and open ended tools.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
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%)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 data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)65 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 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