Dear Members of Darüşşafaka,
With its educational history spanning more than one and a half-centuries, its institutional traditions passed from student to student, and its developing and cultivating schooling culture, Darüşşafaka Schools is an educational institution that sets an example not only for Türkiye but for the world.
This strong foundation takes us further ahead with each passing day. While carrying our school’s traditions into the future, we pass Darüşşafaka’s values on to our students, yet at the same time raise them fully-equipped with the skills and competencies demanded by the 21st century. Full academic competence, intellectual curiosity, and social development are indispensable to us. Encompassed therein, self-discipline, participative leadership, art, and sports are as important to us as academic development.
The journey we embark on with our students to discover where their talents lie starts at an early age, and we become aware of their interests while discovering their talents. Following this awareness, we support them in this respect and provide a variety of opportunities for them to experience and try things for themselves.
Our teachers are our greatest resource in carrying out this work. We work with teachers who are the best in their respective fields, and while our teachers enhance our school, we attach just as much importance to their development. Our teachers are provided with training in areas such as personal development, new trends and innovations in their fields, and technology. They, in turn, reflect on this training and what they have learned in school.
We follow step by step the application of the program that we have prepared. We follow each student individually and closely via exams, projects and performance tasks, experiments, and alternative tools for measuring achievement, and support them in the exact field in which they need help. By the time they graduate from our school, each of our students has analyzed 56 books, attended 32 academic trips, written their reports thereon, and has been provided with technical training and courses. They have had on average 3,000 hours of English classes and 1,800 hours of mathematics classes. As in keeping with contemporary educational systems, they are furnished with an education that is in line with the facts and realities of not only Türkiye but also the world. We support interdisciplinary learning and establish links between our classes. We have a solid laboratory infrastructure to support and encourage our students’ research skills. We back project-based learning and provide support for our children to develop and create projects. Technology is fully integrated with the education in our institution. We give our lessons on tablets and generate instructional and learning designs.
We professionally prepare our children for national and international exams. Preparation for universities is of particular importance in our school. Our students know that preparing for an exam is a process, and they prepare for these exams with a complete and wholesome learning approach by keeping a level of discipline. In this regard, the process of preparing for universities is managed by professional staff, and we prepare our students for the fields they aim to study via university coaching.
We measure and monitor their mastery of foreign languages through international exams, and our students take Cambridge exams at our middle school and IELTS exams at our high school. Thereby, we objectively test how closer we get to achieving our goals and what our next steps should be.
We have sports activities and other activities spanning 16 different areas in our school. Our sports teams are professionally trained and our children with whom we would like to make sports part of their daily lives may also be professionally trained. In this regard, we also furnish our students with a fully-equipped physical environment.
Our music education continues with instrument training. While ensuring our students acquire a general musical culture, we also enable them to play a musical instrument.
As for art, we open and hold individual as well as collective exhibitions and support students’ art to the fullest. Our student homes have been organized in such a way as to ensure our children live their after-school life most healthily and safely, and we have re-created the warmth of a home environment.
Every year we participate in many competitions, contests, and events and host some of these activities. We take part in many scientific competitions with our projects and return with awards. Every year, our robotic team makes significant achievements, and they also represent our country abroad. Not only in physical sciences, but we have many outstanding accomplishments in social sciences, as well.
We are proud of our students’ work, activities, and achievements in the fields of science, art, and sports. We are aware that every Darüşşafaka student is a future, hope, and success story of this country. Both our students at Darüşşafaka and we, their educators, have a dream for their lives. On behalf of my colleagues and students, I gratefully thank everyone who has shared our dreams and supported us in making these dreams come true.
Yours faithfully,
Ebru Arpacı
General Director
Darüşşafaka Schools
