St. Kentigern's Academy is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

comprehensive school A comprehensive school is a secondary school for pupils aged 11–16 or 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is restricted on the basis ...

Blackburn, West Lothian Blackburn is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, near both Bathgate and Livingston, two of the larger towns in the county. It is situated approximately west of Edinburgh and east of Glasgow on the old A8 road. History Blackburn means "the ...

, Scotland. The school was built in 1973 and refurbished in 1995/6 and again in 2009. Major reconstruction began in 2023 after reports of RAAC in part of the schools roofing. Scottish singer-songwriter

Lewis Capaldi Lewis Marc Capaldi (born 7 October 1996) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. In March 2019, his single "Someone You Loved" (2018) topped the UK Singles Chart where it remained for seven weeks, and in November 2019, it reached number ...

was a former pupil at the school as was playwright

Stephen Greenhorn Stephen Greenhorn (born 5 September 1964) is a Scottish playwright and screenwriter. He is the creator of the BBC Scotland soap opera ''River City''. Theatre Greenhorn’s plays have been produced by a wide variety of theatre companies across th ...

School leadership

Senior Management * Dr G Burns - Head teacher * Mrs I Wright - Depute head teacher * Mr D McLeish - Depute head teacher * Mr P Christie - Depute head teacher * Miss J Brydon -

Business Manager The Oxford English Dictionary defines a business manager as "a person who manages the business affairs of an individual, institution, organization, or company". Compare manager. Business managers drive the work of others (if any) in order to op ...

Department Heads * Mr A McIntosh - Maths and

Computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...

* Mr A Jack-

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

* Mr B Johnson - Art, CDT and HFT * Mrs G Reid - Social subjects and business * Mr R McGinley - PE, Music and Drama * Mrs M Duff - English and

modern languages A modern language is any human language that is currently in use as a native language. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead clas ...

(acting) Accurate as of the 2024/25 school year*

Notable former pupils

Susan Boyle Susan Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer who rose to fame in 2009 after appearing as a contestant on the third series of '' Britain's Got Talent'', singing " I Dreamed a Dream" from '. As of 2021, Boyle has sold 25 ...

(b. 1961) — singer *

(b. 1964) — playwright and screenwriter * John Rae (b. 1966) — jazz drummer, composer, and band leader * Fern Brady (b. 1986) — comedian, podcaster, and writer *

(b. 1996) — singer-songwriter and musician

Press coverage

In 2009, there was a formal opening of a £19,000,000 refurbishment and extension to the school; guests included the late Cardinal Keith O'Brien, as well as singer

, who is a former pupil. In 2012, a group of pupils made a video to highlight the high rate of poverty amongst children in the UK, and submitted it to competition for

Unicef UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

. As well as winning the competition, they were also awarded a Rotary Young Citizens Award. In 2017 a 16-year-old student was instructed by the Head Teacher, Mr Sharkey, to remove an LGBT Pride badge from his uniform on the basis that it "Promoted homosexuality". However, West Lothian Council later denied these claims stating "Pupils at St Kentigern's are asked to remove all non-school related badges from their uniforms". In 2017 and 2019, Computing Science teacher, Toni Scullion, won a number of awards for her work in furthering women in Tech, including the 2019 Secondary Teacher of the Year award at the Scottish Women in Tech awards. The school also suffered a stabbing in 2017, where a 13-year-old slashed a 14-year-old in the canteen, which had around 200 people in it at the time. The weapon was believed to be a kitchen knife. Charges were pressed on the 13 year-old perpetrator and a report would be sent to the

procurator fiscal A procurator fiscal (pl. ''procurators fiscal''), sometimes called PF or fiscal (), is a public prosecutor in Scotland, who has the power to impose fiscal fines. They investigate all sudden and suspicious deaths in Scotland (similar to a corone ...

In 2022, all schools in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

where ranked by exam pass rate, St Kentigern's Academy placed 10th in West Lothian Bearley beating Deans Community High and placing 112th out of 340 in Scotland. On Tuesday 6 June 2023, 14-year-old Hamdan Aslam died following an incident. Police were called to the school at approximately 13:20 and the boy was taken by ambulance to hospital where he died shortly after. A

post mortem An autopsy (also referred to as post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death; ...

was carried out and the cause of death was determined to be natural causes via a heart condition. A report has been sent to the

In 2023, urgent repairs and refurbishments began at the school after an earlier inspection found RAAC in part of the schools roofing. The repairs are valued at £35 million and are expected to be completed by August 2026. In 2024, head teacher, Andrew Sharkey, suddenly died after the discovery of a brain tumour, Mr Sharkey served as head teacher of St Kents from April 2014 until his death in late November.

References

Catholic secondary schools in West Lothian {{authority control