The old Morven Road site was redeveloped as a new housing estate, comprising detached and flatted dwellings known as Academy Grove in 2009–12.

[6] The Stockiemuir Road site the academy occupies was originally a Roman Catholic seminary for the Archdiocese of Glasgow and then a teaching college.

It was designed by the same architects as St Peter's Seminary, Cardross, the firm of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (GKC).

After negotiations between Historic Scotland and East Dunbartonshire Council, it was decided to demolish the site and build a school.

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 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.

[14][15] 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.