Lord Byng Secondary School
Lord Byng Secondary School is a public secondary school located in the West Point Grey neighbourhood on the west side of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The school opened in 1925 and was named in honour of The Lord Byng of Vimy, a hero of Vimy Ridge as well as the Gallipoli Campaign, who was largely responsible for the incorporation of tanks on a large scale at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. At the time the school opened, Lord Byng was the Governor General of Canada. The school is widely renowned in the Greater Vancouver region  for its selective Byng Arts mini-school program, as well as for its varsity sports programs and wide assortment of Advanced Placement and Enriched courses. The school was expanded and upgraded in 2003 with a library and gymnasium, as well as studios and classrooms. In the 2005-2006 school year, Byng Arts Theatre Company and the school gained national attention and respect for staging the play "The Laramie Project" after the Surrey School Board banned the play. Byng Arts Mini School. The Byng Arts Mini School is a program for students that places artistic development at the core of the  high school experience through enrichment in the fine arts as well as academics. Traditionally, students have specialized in Visual Arts, Band, Strings, or Theatre, but options have expanded to include Literary Arts, Media Arts, and Choir. The school offers a program that is designed for students who wish to direct their energies and passions towards the arts, to work within a community of students who share their interests, and to maintain strong academic achievement. The program promotes academic and artistic excellence through curricular and extracurricular activities in the fine arts, literary arts and applied fine arts. Lord Byng sports. Lord  Byng sports teams are named for their school mascot, the Grey Ghost. Lord Byng sports teams include Cross-country, Bantam Boys Rugby, Juvenile Boys Rugby, Bantam Girls Volleyball, Juv/Junior Girls Volleyball, Senior Girls Volleyball, Swimming, Girls Basketball, Bantam Girls Basketball, Juvenile Girls Basketball, Jr/Senior Girls Basketball, Boys Basketball, Bantam Boys Basketball, Juv/Junior Boys Basketball, Senior Boys Basketball, Bantam Boys Volleyball, Grade 8/Juvenile Girls Soccer, Senior Girls Soccer (Tier II), Girls Premier Soccer (Tier I), Tennis, Gymnastics, Ultimate, Girls Softball, Track & Field, Junior Boys Rugby, Senior Boys Rugby, Badminton, and Golf as well as inter-mural sports , such as hand-ball. Some of their recent wins include their Cross Country team's Team Aggregate Championship award and the Grade 8 Boys Rugby City Championship for defeating Charles Tupper 15-12 in the finals. They also won the Tier II Senior Girls Basketball City Championships in the 2011 - 2012 season. Lord Byng Music Department. Under the direction of the Fine Arts department head, Scott MacLennan, Lord Byng has one of the best music programs in the Lower Mainland. Many of the groups, including the high-level Senior Honour Orchestra and Senior Wind Ensemble, have consistently placed first or  gold in provincial and national competitions. Lord Byng's strings ensembles have won over 25 Kiwanis Festival Gold Awards (Provincial Competition) and three Gold Awards from the National Competition MusicFest. In 2008, the Senior Honour Orchestra won the trophy for first place in the North West Orchestra Competition in Portland, Oregon, and in 2010, both Junior and Senior Honour Orchestras received gold standing in the Heritage Music Festival in Seattle, Washington. The Senior Honour Orchestra were invited to compete in the 2012 American String Teachers Association National Orchestra Festival in Atlanta, where they placed second against advanced American school orchestras . In March 2014, the Senior Honours Orchestra competed in the National School Orchestra Finals in the prestigious Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, in New York City. This orchestra competed against several American orchestras and was crowned first-place champion of the 2014 Orchestra Cup. Trophies brought back include the National Orchestra Cup, Best Solo Violinist Award and Best String Orchestra Award. In April 2017, the Senior Honour Orchestra competed at World Strides Festival of Golds, California, along with dozens of other orchestras, bands and choirs in North America. They obtained 1st place out of all the other music groups . On May 5th of the same year, both the Senior Honour and a combination of Junior and Intermediate Orchestras competed at the Kiwanis Festival held at Douglas College. Both orchestras obtained 1st place in their respective divisions. The Lord Byng Symphony Orchestra is one of the few public school symphony orchestras in the province. Students are expected to perform unabridged symphonies and pieces. A few grade 12 soloists (at least one per term) are chosen to perform concertos. For the "Vancouver Courier"'s 2012 "Stars of Vancouver Readers Choice Awards", readers placed the Lord Byng Symphony Orchestra in third place  under the category "Classical Music Ensemble", behind the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the UBC Symphony Orchestra. Some of the classes that are offered in band and strings are: Some of the band trips include Osaka, Japan (1970), Austria and Germany (2003), New York City (2005), Italy (2007), England (2009), China (2011), France & Belgium (2013), and New York City (2015). Achievements. Lord Byng Secondary School received a rating of 9.2 out of 10 in 2007 from an independent reviewer. It ranked 13th out of the 291 schools ranked in that same review. As of 2006, Lord Byng was tied with University  Hill as the top overall ranked public school in the Lower Mainland. In the 2014 Fraser Institutes provincial rankings, Byng was placed as the top public school.