PRIMARY SCHOOL

We welcome students from the age of 6 to 9 years. Our unique academic programme provides a highly successful school experience for the students. We follow a methodology that requires “personalised learning according to the needs of the pupil,” so those young who are not yet ready are nurtured to develop at their own pace, rather than pushed both academically and socially. BIS Zekeriyaköy also provides the Turkish National curriculum according to the year groups.

Our Curriculum and Learning Environment

The unique curriculum of BIS is prepared with the main subjects of the programme and these subjects are repeated in each class level. Repeating these main subjects and adding more in each time they are taught, creates a better learning environment for students and students get a chance to use the information they’ve learned. Students use their foreign language actively and communicate by using English in the multinational environment of the school. This helps them to internalise English and adapt the language to their daily lives.

Our unique curriculum provides an experience thorough in all the traditional disciplines as well as ICT, Music, Arts and Sports. These lessons are taught by BIS’s highly experienced and successful specialist teachers. Depending on their choice, French or Spanish are taught to students from Year 3 onwards in addition to English Language.

With the multicultural learning environment, our students become well-balanced and positive world citizens with good communication skills who appreciate and celebrate different cultures, languages and values. BIS students actively participate in many occasions such as Halloween, Global Citizenship Day, Sports Day, Summer Fun Day, Winter  Bazaar & Winter Showcase, Spring Egg Hunt, Children’s Day, awards ceremonies, athletics day, assemblies, festivals, concerts, swimming gala, graduations as well as National ceremonies and celebrations.

English As a Second Language (ESL)

We provide ESL classes to all our Primary students who are in need of English learning support. ESL lessons are pull-out lessons, and students work in very small groups with our qualified and experienced ESL teachers.

Turkish Academic Support

We provide extra support for Turkish, Maths, Science and Social Studies subjects to all our Primary students. These lessons are pull-out lessons, and students work in very small groups with our qualified and experienced Turkish class teachers.

Academic Staff

All teachers of BİSİ are responsive to children’s needs and requests. They realise that each child has personal needs as an individual so that our teachers create different environments to meet these needs. Our teachers observe each child to follow and analyse their personal progress and plan activities that will support their improvement. If they have concerns about a child, they liaise with the specialists in our school and inform the parents about the entire process.

Our academic staff are experienced, successful native English and Turkish teachers who have bachelor’s degrees. All of our teachers are open to improvement and innovation; follow the developments in their area of specialisation and try to make students learn theories by practising them. Their aim is to foster individuals who are questionnaires so that they improve themselves and their knowledge about their profession first. 

Student Life

We believe that learning is encouraged through play, which in turn impacts positively on child development. Our teachers support this environment of play in order to attract the student’s interest and increase their engagement. Therefore, we enrich the learning environment for our preschool students by creating areas that each child can choose individually. 

In Primary, this enrichment is provided through projects, activities and field trips. Activities are planned for students to improve their sense of responsibility. We run indoor and outdoor projects requiring students to show individual responsibility. 

Students of all our schools communicate by using English in common play and other activities in order to improve themselves in three main areas; human relations, communication skills and the use of foreign language. Our school’s multinational structure makes play time a more intercultural, social, enjoyable and meaningful time for our students.

Special Needs

The Class Teacher observes each student individually and checks that their progress is on track. If they have concerns about a student, they liaise with our Special Educational Needs and Inclusion Leader. Specialists of the Special Educational Needs Department then start observing the student in lessons, breaks, lunchtime and play hours. These observations are shared with the relevant teacher and parents and then, required guidance is made. 

Counselling

At BİSİ, we care about students' wellbeing, social and emotional developments. The transition to primary school is one of the first periods of independence for a child. In this period, we support our students as the BİSİ guidance and psychological counselling department  in order to strengthen them psychologically and encourage their developments in a healthy way. At the beginning of each year, we plan an orientation day with the students and teachers, as well as parents’ meetings. We offer an up-to-date and international guidance curriculum to our students by jointly processing the MEB PDR curriculum and the British PSHE curriculum. 

• As a result of our observations as the counselling department, we plan meetings with the cooperation of parents, students and teachers on behalf of preventive guidance and carry out guidance studies on the subject. 

• As developmental guidance, we support our students to develop self-confidence and positive self-perception, and to gain effective communication and problem-solving skills. We adopt an inclusive guidance approach aimed at meetings. 

• We adopt an understanding of guidance that prioritises the developmental needs of the individual and an understanding of inclusive guidance to meet the needs of the developmental periods of the students.

Parents guidance seminars are held for the social, emotional and individual development of our students every month. A guidance bulletin on the subject is prepared and shared with our parents. The activities of our counselling department are published in the Newsletter every month and shared with the parents.

As the counselling department, we follow the academic, social and psychological development of each student by holding regular meetings with the classroom teachers every month throughout the year. We support our students' wellbeing and development in cooperation with our classroom teachers.

Prospective students and family interviews are held by the counselling department during the school registration process as well as the director meetings. Counselling department is one of the members of the new students registration process.

Working With Parents

We provide orientation meetings for each year group in the last week of August. Parents, teachers and students meet before the school starts. As parents are informed by the teachers and the school admin, students have the chance to do activities with their classmates.

Parents' Evenings are held in October and April, which gives the parent and class & subject teachers the opportunity to discuss their child’s progress, needs and development. Reports are issued twice a year, in December and June, to inform parents about their student’s progress both in Turkish and English. We also inform the parents regularly about MEB & Achievement Evaluation Exam results.

We offer coffee mornings every term. This is a time for parents to meet with the Pre & Primary School Director to discuss any issues. 

Parents Teacher Association (PTA) members and the school admin work closely to be useful to our school, to the society we live in, to the students in need and to the needs of our school by cooperating with the activities, trips and donations. With the studies in line with the school spirit, the students and their parents become a part of the BIS Family.

Primary Updates

For news and updates on Primary School activities, a monthly Newsletter is produced which details events that are taking place in the previous month as well as informs the parents for the upcoming events. The Director of Communications, Deputy Principals and Counselling Department also inform parents regularly for the updated information.

There are Parent Notice boards in our campus where the newsletters, current letters and school menu are displayed.

Assemblies

Primary students have an assembly once a week. These cover a range of themes and topics such as SEAL-GD, Student Council, Mother-Tongue drama, safety, and of course small class drama assemblies. Assemblies also include House points, and Students of the Week and specialist certificates. 

Certificates and Awards

Each week, students are selected by Class Teachers to receive the Student of the Week certificate to celebrate academic accomplishments as well as personal, social or emotional accomplishments. Specialists may also choose to give Student of the Week certificates.

At the end of the year, Primary has special Awards Ceremonies where students are awarded certificates for special accomplishments, achievement, and talents. 

ESL Certificates: As students exit the ESL programme, special ESL Certificates are awarded. 

Activities

In keeping with the British tradition, we have many events throughout the year, such as: Halloween, Global Citizenship Day, Sports Day, Summer Fun Day, Winter  Bazaar & Winter Showcase, Spring Egg Hunt, Children’s Day, Cross Country Run, awards ceremonies, athletics day, assemblies, festivals, concerts, swimming gala, graduations as well as National ceremonies and celebrations.These events are supported by the parents in general. These events help us to enrich the cultural wealth we have in our campus with the common participation of students from all our schools.

School Houses

All Primary students are organised into three House teams: Cedar, Maple and Oak. Each week, House points are collected and celebrated in assemblies, with students working in houses towards winning the school House Trophy at the end of the year. School Houses are led by year 6 House Captains and Vice Captains.