Bearsden Academy

• Name — Bearsden Academy • Motto — Committed to excellence • Type — State secondary school • Head Teacher — George Cooper • Chair Label — Chair of Parent Council • Chair — Iain Pringle • Address — Stockiemuir Road • City — Bearsden • County — East Dunbartonshire • Postal Code — G61 3SU • Country — Scotland • Local Authority — East Dunbartonshire • Staff — c. 100 • Enrollment — c. 1188 • Gender — Co-educational • Lower Age — 11 • Upper Age — 18 • Colours — Navy, red, gold, green navyGoldGreen • Publication — The BAnner • Accreditation — Investors in People • Website — http: www.bearsdenacademy.e-dunbarton.sch.uk/

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.

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. Norman McLeod was a rector at the school and one of the streets in Academy Grove is named in his honour.

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.

In September 1995, it was discovered that Brian MacKinnon, a 32-year-old former student, had attended the academy for a year on the pretext of being a Canadian teenager named Brandon Lee. He had shaved his eyebrows to look younger and permed his hair. He starred in a school production of South Pacific and gained six highers (including five A grades, taking English, Maths, Chemistry, Physics and Biology), before going on to study medicine at Dundee University. Teachers had remarked on his mature appearance. A 2022 documentary film about the events, My Old School, was made by one of Mackinnon's fellow pupils. It contains interviews with students and staff from the time; Alan Cumming plays the adult MacKinnon, lip syncing to the audio of MacKinnon's interviews.

In November 2011, a married father of two was sentenced to a year and two months in jail for sexual offences relating to two pupils at Bearsden Academy. The 39-year-old teacher of mathematics, 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 launched an inquiry into an allegation that a teacher had an affair with an ex-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, though not suspended.

• Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice • Katherine Grainger, Olympic Gold medallist rower • Ross Greer MSP, Scottish Green Party MSP for West Scotland • Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand • Aasmah Mir, journalist and broadcaster • David Moyes, former manager of Manchester United