ENKA Schools

ENKA Schools
Location
Istinye, Istanbul, Turkey
Information
Type Private, Coeducational, Bilingual
Established September 1996
Principal Erkan Gültekin & Filiz Aktepe
Director Darlene Fisher
Key people Erkan Gültekin & Filiz Aktepe
Number of students ~1000 (Elementary School), ~1000 (High School)
Campus İstinye, Istanbul
School Color(s) Blue and white
Website http://www.enkaschools.com

Since its establishment in 1996, Enka Schools in Istanbul, Turkey, has grown to accommodate (as of 2006) approximately 2000[1] students from pre-kindergarten to grade 12. Athletic facilities have been established at the Sadi Gülçelik Spor Sitesi to serve the students who have daily access to the sports facilities of The ENKA Foundation. Immediately after the earthquake on August 17, 1999, Enka Foundation joined the nation’s collective effort to provide relief to victims by building schools as quickly as possible the Adapazarı ENKA School is one of them. In November 2005 ENKA Schools was awknowledged by the IBO and became a IB World School. ENKA Schools is now one of the 23 other IB certified schools. It offers the IB Primary Years Programme and IB Diploma Programme.

Contents

General information

Since its beginnings in 1996 in temporary accommodation with just over 200 students, the first Enka School in Istanbul has moved to the main campus within the Sadi Gülçelik Sports Complex and has rapidly expanded. Every year, an additional 150 students join an existing student body ranging from preschool through to 12th grade.

While Enka Foundation makes a substantial contribution necessary to maintain the school’s financial viability, the school exists as an independent non-profit corporation directed by an unsalaried Executive Committee, which is in turn reviewed by a voluntary Board of Advisors.

The program uses both Turkish and English as the teaching languages. A bilingual community is fostered within the school through language instruction for teachers as well as for students. In addition, as students become proficient in English, they move on to learning a third language such as French or German. The curriculum enables graduating students to meet all the requirements for the International Baccalaureate. The Istanbul Enka School provides scholarships to more than 200 students a year.

The school has extracurricular activities such as drama, chess, creative games, dancing, community volunteering, model-making and outdoor pursuits such as climbing, archeology and camping. Students also learn from tutors and professionals in the visual and performing arts fields.

Students of the school share the training grounds with Enka Sports Club for use in their physical training classes. In addition, about 600 students participate in the after schools program five days a week under the supervision of the club trainers. Outstanding students are coached to competition level.

In October, 1999, following the earthquake in the Sea of Marmara region east of Istanbul, ENKA Schools opened a school for the young victims of this disaster. The campus is situated near Adapazarı, a mid-sized industrial city in which most of the buildings were destroyed and the population decimated. The school serves more than four hundred pre-school, primary and high school children in a new community.

History

In 1994, Sinan Tara, Vice-Chairman of ENKA Holding Company, and Ibrahim Betil, banker and community activist, found themselves sitting together on a plane from Ankara. Mr. Betil shared his vision of a different kind of school in Istanbul, a Turkish school that would be a center of excellence. Now a pre-school and primary school are fully established, and the high school has just opened.

Since opening in September, 1996, with just over 200 students, ENKA Schools have moved from temporary quarters to its rapidly-expanding main campus on the Sadi Gülçelik Sports Site in İstinye. Nearly 1000 students, from pre-school through grade nine, commute daily from both the Asian and European sides of the Bosphorus. Each year, another 100 students and ten to twelve teachers join.

Mission and Philosophy

The mission of Enka Schools is to lay the intellectual and behavioral foundations that will prepare and motivate each individual to continuously develop to the full extent of his/her capacities and to instill the mental and moral habits fostering freedom of thought and action in themselves and others – irrespective of their origins. Our mission seeks to develop students as leading citizens of Turkey or other countries of origin.

Campus and Facilities

High school

Extracurricular and Traditional/Annual Activities

Extracurricular activities

Clubs and Afterschool Activities
Co-curricular activities are divided into club and after school activities carried out by Enka Schools and the Enka Sports Club. The school has club activities[2] that students from different grades participate in 2 hours a week. Below is a list of some of them:

ICA(International Chain of Awareness)(4 conference since 2005)

  • Tennis
  • School Orchestra
  • Yearbook Club

The School also offers afterschool activities 5 days a week:

  • Volleyball
  • Track and Field
  • Tennis
  • Football
  • Basketball

Traditional/Annual Activities

Annual and traditional activities include:

  • The ENKA International Dance Festival. A newer festival that has been held for the past 4 years involving many schools from Turkey and about 1-2 International schools hosted by ENKA. The most recent, the 4th International Dance Festival 2007, was a first because the ENKA High school participated with a Latin Dance formed by students in the Club and Afterschool dance classes. Our international guest school was a school from Finland.
  • ENKA Book Week. Hosted by the library departments of ENKA Schools, books are collected by students willing to donate. The collected books are then packaged and given away to schools in need or homeless children that want to read books.
  • Free Dress Day. Every Friday is free dress day in ENKA where students are allowed to come to school with non-uniform, but appropriate clothes of their own selection.
  • Theater'. Towards the end of every school year the Drama Club organizes and performs a play lasting from famous world literature or a traditional Turkish play. .
  • ENKA FEST(EGG). The ENKA fest is a new festival. It takes place in June before the end of schools where many celebrities perform along with the ENKA Highschool's best bands.(Cancelled for 2008 due to lack of organisation)
  • International Chain of Awareness (ICA) Conference. This is a conference which is created by some ENKA Schools students. There are 7 committees which are trying to create action plans. The global problems are: Water Deficit, Global Warming, Education, Gender equality, Child Mortality, Ecosystem Losses, Poverty & Hunger. METU College, Adapazarı ENKA School, Koç School, HEV Schools and a school from Romania are the schools who join in this conference. The conference was held in November 2006, and May 2007. The next conference is in March 2008. The 2008 conference will include a school from the United States, Billings Middle School from Seattle, Washington.
  • Field Trips. The students are taken on field trips during the school year including one special trip. The art and music departments take students to museums and festivals such as RamFest which is held by the Koç School. The special trip is usually more than 2 days. In this school year of 2007 selected students were taken to Cairo, Egypt for a week-long school-trip.

References

  1. ^ Students and teachers from ENKA
  2. ^ taught by experienced coaches, students and/or teachers

External links