Lycée Notre Dame de Sion Istanbul

A group of eleven French nuns travelled to Istanbul arriving on October 7, 1856. They took over the administration of Maison du Saint-Esprit, a boarding school in Pangaltı neighborhood, which was named after the 1846-built Cathedral of the Holy Spirit next to it, and was run by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul (French: Filles de la Charité), a society of apostolic life for women within the Catholic Church. The official opening of the French boarding school under the name Lycée Notre Dame de Sion took place on November 27 the same year.[1] It became the first ever girls' school in Turkey. Inıtially a boarding school for Christian girls, it shortly after attracted Jewish pupils. From 1863 on, Muslim girls attended the school following the interest of the notable families in the Empire and the approval of the Ottoman Sultan.[2][3]

The school closed down during World War I when the French nuns left the country as a result of the war being so hard and their country being at war with Turkey.

In 1919, the school reopened. With the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the school was subordinated to the Ministry of National Education, and Turkish administrators and teachers joined the school staff. It began also to serve as a day school. The primary school section was abandoned in 1971, and the boarding school in 1972. From 1989 on, the head of the school administration was handed over to a secular rector while the nuns remained serving in the school as well. After a 140-year long tradition of girls only school, it went co-educational, accepting boys with the 1996–97 school year.[2]

An international piano contest was organized by the school in 2013.[4]

A chamber music concert was performed in the school in 2014 in commemoration of harpist Fatma Ceren Necipoğlu, who died at the Air France Flight 447 accident in 2009.[5]

In 2015, the art gallery of the school hosted an exhibition titled "Osmanlı'dan Cumhuriyet'e Kadınlar" (literally:Women from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic) showing Christian, Jewish and Muslim women mainly on postcards from 1880 to 1930.[6]

• Three adoptive children of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, including Afet İnan (1908–1985) ), were educated in Lycée Notre Dame de Sion.[2]
• Ayla Algan (born 1937), film/stage actress and singer,
• Adile Ayda (1912–1992), diplomat
• Oya Baydar (born 1940), sociologist and writer
• Aliye Berger (1903–1974), artist, engraver and painter,[1]
• Selina Özuzun Doğan (born 1977), lawyer and politician,[7]
• Balçiçek İlter (born 1973), journalist and television presenter
• Afet İnan (1908–1985), historian
• Nazlı Ilıcak (born 1944), journalist and writer,[8]
• Suzan Kahramaner (1913–2006), mathematician, one of the first Turkish female mathematicians with PhD
• Füreya Koral (1910–1997), ceramist
• Matild Manukyan (c. 1916-17–2001), businesswoman
• Bedia Muvahhit (1897–1994), stage and movie actress,[1]
• Türkan Rado (1915–2007), first ever Turkish female professor of jurisprudence
• Pınar Selek (born 1971), sociologist, writer and feminist
• Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901–1991), painter,[1]

Fiction

• Feride, novel character

• Education in the Ottoman Empire