The flagship school of the prestigious Bahçeşehir chain of privately-owned primary schools was first established in Istanbul in 1994. Presently, however, this rapidly-growing institution boasts 19 primary schools, 11 high schools and 30 kindergartens throughout Turkey. Founded in 1998, Bahçeşehir University, with its 6 faculties (Arts & Sciences, Economic and Administrative Sciences, Law, Communications, Architecture & Design and Engineering, in addition to its institute of Sciences and institute of Social Sciences and a Vocational school) provides the schools with consistent academic support and regular teacher training courses for teachers of all subjects at both pre-service and in-service level, as well as professional development opportunities for the schools’ administrators.

The ethos of the schools stems from universal principles and values such as equality, human rights, and teaching democracy and tolerance, while the individualised teaching/learning system and whole-brained learning philosophies adopted in the schools aim to bring out the academic, social and artistic strengths of every learner. Equipped with several laboratories, science museums, an observatory and a planetarium, the chain of schools is also particularly renowned for the success of its foreign language teaching (English, German and French) using multimedia labs and cutting edge language teaching methods. CLIL methodology is also being employed in Bahçeşehir Science and Technology High School, Istanbul, where maths and science subjects have been taught in English since its inception in 2006.