St. Ninian's High School 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 ...

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

, located in

Kirkintilloch Kirkintilloch (; ; ) is a town and a Burgh of Barony (The Baron of Kirkintilloch) in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It lies on the Forth and Clyde Canal and on the south side of Strathkelvin, about northeast of central Glasgow. Historically ...

East Dunbartonshire East Dunbartonshire (; , ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders Glasgow City Council Area to the south, North Lanarkshire to the east, Stirling (council area), Stirling to the north, and West Dunbartonshire to the west. East ...

, on the banks of the

Forth and Clyde Canal The Forth and Clyde Canal is a canal opened in 1790, crossing central Scotland; it provided a route for the seagoing vessels of the day between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. This allow ...

Admissions

There are currently over 900 students in attendance with an average of 5/6 classes in each year. Each class has no more than 30 pupils. St Ninians is a Roman Catholic School.

School roll

Academic performance

The school has consistently proved to be successful in a number of different areas – SQA results, the Charter Mark award, Investors in People recognition and the Scottish Education Award for “Raising Basic Standards”. In 2008, David Miller, an English Teacher, won the UK Secondary Teacher of the Year at the National Teaching Awards, and, in 2009, Headteacher Paul McLaughlin won the Scottish Secondary Head Teacher of the Year.

History

St Ninian's opened in 1874 in the town centre on Union Street. The school then moved to a new site in 1931 on the sight of the former Westermains House on Bellfield Road. It then moved from Bellfield Road to the former Thomas Muir campus in Bishopbriggs during the demolition and complete rebuild of the Bellfield Road Campus. As of August 2009, is back in Bellfield Road.

Celtic Youth Academy

St Ninian's High, in partnership with

Celtic F.C. The Celtic Football Club, commonly known as Celtic (), is a professional Association football, football club in Glasgow, Scotland. The team competes in the Scottish Premiership, the top division of Scottish football league system, Scottish ...

, allows the Celtic Academy players, who are pupils in S1 to S5, to combine intensive coaching sessions with a programme of studies based on continental methods, where everything is monitored including behaviour and homework.

Feeder schools

* Holy Family Primary School, Lenzie. * Holy Trinity Primary School, Kirkintilloch. * St Nicholas' Primary School, Bearsden. * St Machan's Primary School, Lennoxtown.

Notable former pupils

Theresa Breslin Theresa Breslin is a Scottish author of over 50 books. In 1994, she won the 1994 Carnegie Medal. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. In 2019 Breslin received an O.B.E. in the Queen's Birthday Honours ...

(born 1947), author *

Peter Capaldi Peter Dougan Capaldi (; born 14 April 1958) is a Scottish actor, director, singer and guitarist. He portrayed the Twelfth Doctor, twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction series ''Doctor Who'' (2013–2017) and Malcolm Tucker i ...

(born 1958), actor * Stephen Crainey (born 1981), footballer * Karamoko Dembélé (born 2003), footballer * Bishop Joseph Devine (1937 – 2019), Bishop of Motherwell * John Hendrie (born 1963), footballer * Aaron Hickey (born 2002), footballerAaron Hickey details his Karamoko Dembele lessons as Hearts kid upstages school pal
Gary Ralston, '' Daily Record'' (May 26, 2019) * Des McKeown (born 1970), footballer * Charlie Mulgrew (born 1986), footballer * Bishop Ian Murray (born 1932),

Bishop Emeritus In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders and is responsible for teaching doctrine, governing Catholics in his jurisdiction, sanctifying the world and representing the c ...

of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Argyll and the Isles The Diocese of Argyll and the Isles () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Scotland, in the Province of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh. Overview The diocese covers an area of 31,080 km² and has a C ...

* Katie Sutherland, musician ( Pearl and the Puppets) *

Kieran Tierney Kieran Tierney (born 5 June 1997) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Scottish Premiership club Celtic and the Scotland national team. Tierney came through the Celtic youth system and made his first-team debut in ...

(born 1997), footballer * Paul Wilson (born 1950), footballer

References

External links

St Ninian's High School's page on Scottish Schools Online

French trip
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Ninian's High School, Kirkintilloch Catholic secondary schools in East Dunbartonshire Educational institutions established in 1874 Kirkintilloch * Lenzie 1874 establishments in Scotland Youth football in Scotland Celtic F.C.