School Sections

• Bells Corners School
• City View School
• Fallowfield School
• Merivale School
• Grant Consolidated School
• Jockvale School
• Mosgrove School
• Twin Elm Schoo
• Woodroffe School
• Greenbank School

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, settlers were too preoccupied with establishing their farms and homesteads to worry about the education of their children. Youngsters were expected to help their parents with the farm work and household chores. In 1816, the Government of Upper Canada passed the "Common School Act", which allowed the residents of any town, village or community to establish a school providing they had over twenty children to attend. The Government offered to pay the teachers' salary up to an amount of fifty dollars.

The first school was built along Richmond Road in 1829 although not much is known of it. In 1832 William Bell donated land for the site of a new schoolhouse, which was built in 1833-34. This log school preceded the Mosgrove School (SS #3) that still stands today. The early schoolhouses of Nepean were typically one-room log structures containing little more than a stove and enough wooden benches and desks to accommodate forty or fifty pupils. The best schools were located near the most successful farms (Elliott 56, 58).

In 1846, the Common School Act made Nepean district superintendents responsible for dividing the townships into "School Sections". By 1850, thirteen School Sections had been established.