Our Story

This school did not start with a business plan. It started with a parent's question.

I was looking for the right school in Istanbul for my own son, and I could not find it. CLLC Turkey is what came out of that search.

For four months we got to know the city not as visitors, but as people living in it. Photo: Sami Aksu / Pexels

1. Before 2020

   Istanbul was always a short trip

   For years, every visit I made to Turkey was a short one. Most were business trips of two weeks or less. I must have come and gone more than ten times, and not once did I have the chance to really live in the city.

2. March 2020

   We decided to stay for four months

   My family and I were in Istanbul when the pandemic began. Rather than risk the airport and the flight back to Toronto, we chose to stay.

   What started as a short visit turned into four months. We came to know the city as residents instead of guests, and the kindness and hospitality of the Turkish people left a mark on all of us.

3. The search

   I could not find the right school for my son

   For all our love of the city and its people, finding a suitable school for my older son proved difficult. For a child whose first language is English and who has just moved to Turkey, the search was harder than we expected.

   The longer it went on, the clearer it became that this was not only our problem. Families new to Turkey and Turkish families returning from abroad described exactly the same dilemma.

4. The gap

   There were two options, and both fell short

   What we wanted was a simple thing: a school that teaches the Turkish curriculum in full, genuinely develops a child's English, and has staff who speak both languages. We could not find one place that did both.

   International schools

   Their own programme instead of the Turkish curriculum

   Teaching is mostly in English and the programme is international. Because of the national curriculum requirement, that means Turkish citizens generally need dual citizenship or government permission to enrol.

   Private schools

   A strong Turkish curriculum, but limited English

   The Turkish programme runs solidly, but English is confined to its timetabled lessons. And extra support for a child still getting used to Turkish is not something every school is able to offer.

5. The founding

   So we built the school we were looking for

   CLLC Turkey is our answer to that search. We teach the Turkish curriculum in full, and we add to it twenty years of English language teaching from CLLC's EAL schools in Canada.

   Our aim was never to import a school model. It was to bring the best of two education cultures together under one roof.

   What came out of it is a school where families already living in Turkey and families making it their new home can both find a place, and where a child can feel they belong whatever language they arrive with.

6. The campus

   We did not rent the school. We built it.

   Instead of moving into an existing building, we bought the land and built the school from the ground up. Where a child sits, where they rest and how they move at break time are not things you can fix afterwards.

   The 2,500 m² campus in the green Beykoz district of Istanbul was designed with that in mind. The circular building follows a day in which open space and quiet corners are as much a part of the education as the classrooms are.

   • Beykoz, Istanbul
   • 2,500 m² campus
   • Purpose-built
   • Green space and quiet corners