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Education & SchoolsScottish education has always been held in high regard and the history of education in the Cumnock area is a good example of how this came about.
In the early 1600s it was planned to set up a school in every Parish and although it took almost two centuries for this to be realised – things were not at a standstill. Early Parish schools were instituted and run by the Church. The earliest mention of a school in Cumnock being 1625. It is not known exactly where this was situated, but it was somewhere close to the Parish Church. Later one was built on the site now occupied by the Clydesdale Bank. Besides the Parish School in 1837 there were five private schools in the area.
Maintaining standards of education continued to be the responsibility of the Church and an annual examination of school and pupils would be held by the Parish Minister and one or two neighbouring clergymen. Later control of schools and school affairs passed into the hands of school boards, members of which had to be elected. Increasing population and the rise in school rolls meant that schools became too small and in 1876 a “fine, new school” was opened on Barrhill Road, opposite the present Greenmill Primary School. This was called Old Cumnock Public School and many Cumnockians would master the “three Rs” under its roof.
The need arose for a school for older pupils and in 1909 Hillside House was purchased by the school board and converted for use as a school – it opened in 1911. It soon became too small and a large extension was added which became Cumnock Academy in 1927. Hillside House itself was demolished and a fine new wing was added to the school in 1939. A large new primary school had been built at Greenmill in 1954. With the centralisation of secondary education Cumnock Academy now had to accommodate all pupils over the age of twelve years from the Cumnock area and from New Cumnock. It again became too small and the rather confusing solution (for a time) was for Cumnock Academy and Greenmill Primary School to swap locations.
The reason for the increase in Cumnock Academy’s population was because as the town itself was continuing to expand, new houses had been built at Netherthird and Craigens, at Logan and Barshare requiring primary schools to be established there.
A Roman Catholic Primary School at Bank Avenue was opened in 1886 and rebuilt in 1907. A new St. John’s School was erected at Barshare in 1974. In 1961 a new school for secondary pupils was built on Auchinleck Road. It was named St. Conval’s after Conval – patron saint of Cumnock. St. Conval’s is now re-named as a campus of St. Joseph’s in Kilmarnock and its future is uncertain.
Glaisnock House had a fairly short life as a rural school from 1952 until 1973. Boys, boarders and day pupils, and mainly farmer’s sons received an education with emphasis on agricultural matters.
Hillside School for children with severe learning difficulties was opened at Drumbrochan in 1992.
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