Bearsden Academy

Bearsden Cross site (1911–1958)

In 1911, the school was situated on the corner of Roman Road and Drymen Road north of Bearsden railway station in the Bearsden Cross area of the town. It was originally known as New Kilpatrick Higher Grade School, it comprised both a primary school and a secondary school. The building was designed by the architectural firm James M. Monro & Sons. It opened on 17 August 1911. The first headmaster was Hugh Primrose. In 1920, the school was renamed Bearsden Academy. In 1958, with the town expanding, and becoming a burgh, a new secondary school was built on Morven Road and Bearsden Academy was moved there and the whole of the remaining building became Bearsden Primary School.

Morven Road Site (1958–2010)

From 1958 to 2010 the school was located on the south side of Morven Road in Bearsden. The old Morven Road site was redeveloped as a new housing estate, comprising detached and flatted dwellings known as Academy Grove in 2009-12.

St Peter's College

The Stockiemuir Road site the academy occupies was originally a Roman Catholic seminary for the Archdiocese of Glasgow and then a teaching college. In 1874, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Charles Eyre originally established St Peter's College in Partickhill. In 1892, he decided to move it to Bearsden. The college chapel was the first to serve the local Catholic population.

With the arrival of a railway to the area, the population increased and the college chapel was expanded. In 1946, a fire destroyed the college, razing it to the ground. The decision was made by the archdiocese to abandon the site and build a new seminary in Cardross. The seminary was moved to Darleith House in Cardross and then Kilmahew House, before the new purpose-built St Peter's Seminary in Cardross was ready in 1966.

Teaching College

In 1966, to replace the seminary, a teaching college was built on the site. It was designed by the same architects as St Peter's Seminary, Cardross, the firm of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (GKC). It was built in a U-shape, with two teaching blocks, a physical education building and five student accommodation buildings. In 1969, the complex was opened, as the Notre Dame College of Education.

In 1981, it merged with Craiglockhart College and was renamed St Andrew's College of Education. On 4 March 1998, it was registered as a category A listed building. In 1999, it joined with University of Glasgow to become the Faculty of Education of the University of Glasgow. In 2002, the teaching college was relocated and the site was declared surplus to university requirements. After negotiations between Historic Scotland and East Dunbartonshire Council, it was decided to demolish the site and built a school.

The new building was built under a public private partnership. In August 2010 the new site for Bearsden Academy opened to staff and students.

Extra-curricular activities

Bearsden Academy offers many clubs and societies:

Pupil Council

The PTA runs a pupil council within the school. Two students from each class get signed up to take part in the pupil council. This allows the students to have a voice within the school and raise concerns or changes that they would like to be put in place.

Music

The Music Department runs the school's:

Most of these perform at the school concerts, one at Christmas and another in June.

Debating

The Debating Society competes in local, Scottish, British and European competitions, and has often performed well in these events. The school has reached high standards and reached the semi-finals of the ESU Schools' MACE competition for two consecutive years (2010-2011 and 2011-2012), as well as becoming National semifinalists in the Institute of Ideas "Debating Matters" competition, and frequently reaching the National rounds of the European Youth Parliament competition. The society has also organised hustings for the Scottish Youth Parliament candidates and even for the Regional List candidates for the 2011 Holyrood election.

32-year-old pupil

In September 1995, it was discovered that Brian MacKinnon, a 32-year-old man, had been attending the academy for a year by impersonating a 17-year-old boy. He shaved his eyebrows to look younger and permed his hair. He had starred in a school production of South Pacific and gained six highers (including five A grades, taking English, Maths, Chemistry, Physics and Biology). Teachers had remarked on his 'mature appearance'.

Sex offenders

In November 2011 a married father of two was sentenced to a year and two months in jail for having sex with the two pupils at Bearsden Academy. 39-year-old Maths teacher Muir McCormick admitted a total of four sex charges involving the girls, aged 16 and 17. He had been suspended when the allegations first emerged, and later resigned.

In 2005 East Dunbartonshire Council had launched an inquiry into an allegation that another teacher had an affair with a former pupil. The teacher, who was not named, was sent home from the school after the 17-year-old girl's father made an official complaint.

In 2007, a person training to be a teacher, while on placement at Bearsden Academy's music department, was convicted of thirty one sexual offences committed against boys as young as twelve and sentenced to five years in jail. Andrew Oliver Kingsley committed them between 2006 and 2009 in Glasgow, Ayrshire, London and a Fife secondary school where he had his probationary year. None of these offences took place at Bearsden Academy.

Notable alumni