The Asian Side Has Always Deserved Better
Ask any family living in Kısıklı, Çamlıca, Altunizade, Çengelköy or Kandilli about international schooling in Istanbul and they will almost always say the same thing: the best options have always been on the other side of the Bosphorus. For years, families on Istanbul’s Asian side, one of the city’s most affluent, most family oriented and most culturally rooted communities, have faced a genuine dilemma. Either accept a long daily commute across the Bosphorus to reach the city’s most recognised international schools, or settle for options that, however capable, lack the academic heritage, the curriculum depth and the global recognition that truly ambitious families are looking for.
That dilemma is about to end. Reigate Grammar School Istanbul, the international campus of Reigate Grammar School, one of England’s most distinguished independent schools, founded in 1675, is opening on Eski Kısıklı Caddesi, in the heart of the neighbourhood that has been waiting for it longest.
“For families in Kısıklı, Çamlıca, Altunizade and Çengelköy, RGS Istanbul is not just a new school. It is the school that finally belongs here.”
A Community That Already Understands Excellence
The neighbourhoods surrounding RGS Istanbul are not strangers to aspiration. Kısıklı and the wider Çamlıca quarter are home to some of Istanbul’s most accomplished families, professionals, entrepreneurs, academics and business leaders who have studied at the world’s leading universities and who are raising children they expect to do the same. These are families who already understand what a Reigate Grammar School education represents. Many may have encountered the RGS name during their own time studying or working in the UK. The school’s arrival in their own neighbourhood is, for many of them, the moment they have been anticipating for years.
No More Crossing the Bosphorus for World-Class Education
The daily reality of a cross Bosphorus school commute should not be underestimated. The bridges and tunnels that connect Istanbul’s two sides are among the most congested routes in Europe during morning and evening peak hours. For families in Üsküdar, Kadıköy, Acıbadem, and Bağlarbaşı, an hour or more in traffic each way is a genuine cost, in time, in family wellbeing and in a child’s capacity to arrive at school ready to learn and leave school ready to rest.
RGS Istanbul changes that calculation entirely. A world class British independent school education, the full GCSE and A Level pathway, the pastoral depth, the co-curricular breadth, the university outcomes, will soon be available without leaving the Asian side. For families who have long felt that their side of the city was underserved, this is not a small thing. It is a transformation.
Rooted in the Neighbourhood, Connected to the World
What makes RGS Istanbul’s location on Eski Kısıklı Caddesi so compelling is that it is genuinely of this community, not merely placed within it. The green hills of Kısıklı and Çamlıca, the quiet residential streets, the village-like character of the neighbourhood, these are not inconveniences to be designed around. They are assets that define the kind of school RGS Istanbul will be: a place where children have space to breathe, to think, to develop at a human pace, in a setting that reflects the calm, purposeful ambition of the families who live here.
And yet, for all its sense of neighbourhood and community, RGS Istanbul is also a school without borders. Its curriculum opens the doors of Oxford, Cambridge, the Ivy League and the world’s leading universities. Its heritage is recognised by admissions tutors on every continent. Its students will graduate ready not just for university, but for a life of contribution and curiosity, wherever in the world that life leads them.
Register Your Interest Today
RGS Istanbul is currently welcoming registrations of interest from families across Istanbul’s Asian side, and from families on the European side who are willing to seek out the very best, wherever it is. Founding Family places are limited, and demand from the immediate catchment community will be considerable.
Contact our admissions team today to register your interest and be among the first to experience what RGS Istanbul has to offer.
