Colonel By Secondary School

Colonel By Secondary School offers the IB Diploma Programme, a pre-university course of studies offered to students over a two-year period from grade 11 to 12. Preparation for the challenge of the IB Diploma is begun in grade 9 and grade 10 through the enrichment and acceleration of various courses.

All successful recipients of the IB Diploma also receive their Ontario Secondary School Diploma.

Cougar Vision is a high school digital television station that provides coverage of school activities founded in 1999. It is Canada's first all‐digital high school television station, commercial‐free educational programming through "Cable in the Classroom".[5][6]

Colonel By has had a history of strong math students who have performed well on national math contests administered by the University of Waterloo, as well as other local and national mathematics contests. For instance, in the 2009 Grade 9 Pascal's Math Contest, Colonel By came first in the city and fifth in Canada.[7] However, its prominence in Olympiad mathematics has been more limited, with few outstanding results on the Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge that have warranted invitation to the Canadian Mathematical Olympiad.

This changed in the 2008–2009 school year with the arrival of freshman James Rickards. Despite his youth, he received an invitation to write the 2009 Canadian Mathematical Olympiad and scored in the 3rd division.[8] His arrival coincided with the school registering for its first writing of the American Mathematics Competitions (a lobbying effort by the senior students at the time that was finally granted). Over half the students who wrote the AMC qualified for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination. James Rickards was the sole participant who went on to receive an invitation to write the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad.

In the 2009–2010 school year, James Rickards continued to represent Colonel By on the national scale as a sophomore. He placed 2nd in the 2010 Canadian Mathematical Olympiad, outperforming returning members of the 2009 Canadian International Mathematical Olympiad team.[9] Surprisingly, the Canadian Mathematical Society did not invite James Rickards to the 2010 Canadian IMO team, making him the first student in over a decade to have placed 2nd on the CMO, but not to have been announced a member of the IMO team. Nonetheless, in 2012, James Rickards was announced as a member of the Canadian IMO team, making him the first Colonel By student in history to have received said honour.

Colonel By has produced students who have performed well on the national CCC, administered by the University of Waterloo. Notably, Zeyu Chen achieved a perfect 75/75 on the CCC Senior[10] and was invited to the CCO in 2021,[11] where he achieved a Silver medal.[12] Zeyu Chen is also known for his performance on Advent of Code (AoC), in which he solidified places 43rd (2020) and 37th (2021) out of over 200 000 participants.

Colonel By is also home to the "C-Flats", Colonel By's award-winning vocal jazz ensemble. The ensemble won the gold award as well as 1st place standing in the vocal jazz category of the New York City Heritage Festival in 2014, and were invited to perform at Carnegie Hall.[13] The C-Flats were also given the opportunity to perform at the National Day of Honour on Parliament Hill in May 2014.[13]

Colonel By also has many award-winning jazz and concert bands that have performed and won awards at a variety of music festivals including the National Capital Region MusicFest and MusicFest Canada.

Many students from Colonel By Secondary School participate in Canada's Capital Cappies, a theatrical club that involves putting together a play that is to be evaluated by several judges from across Ottawa. In 2012, Colonel By won the Cappies awards for Top Critic Team, Top Female Critic, Top Male Critic, and Featured Actor in a Play. In 2019, the school's production of Chicago (musical) won Cappie awards for Female Lead Actor in a Musical, Best Song, and Best Orchestra. In 2023, the Cappies team (Zoe Whitlock, Safya Khan, Calia Hare, Amelia Alam, Ishita Goswami and Samuel Khosla) was nominated for Best School. Safya Khan, Samuel Khosla, Zoe Whitlock and Amelia Alam were all also nominated for best Junior Critic.

Colonel By is known for its recent surge of notable athletes in track and field. Four of Colonel By's athletes who competed in the 2007 OFSAA Track and Field Championships in Ottawa won medals (two gold, one silver and one bronze). Putting this into perspective, excluding this year, there has only been three athletes from eastern Ottawa from the past three years that have won medals in OFSAA.

One Colonel By's gold medalists in 2007, 15-year-old Oluwasegun Makinde, set a new junior provincial record in the men's 200m running a personal best of 21.74 seconds, demolishing the old record of 22.75. He attended the IAAF World Youth Championships in Athletics in the Czech Republic that summer.[14] Footage of the record-breaking 200m finals can be seen here In his final year, Oluwasegun set the senior provincial record in the men's 200m running a personal best of 20.99 seconds. Footage of the record-breaking 200m finals can be seen here. He opted to not take a victory lap and went off to studies in university. Since then, he has had continued success, including the opportunity to run in the same relay race against Usain Bolt.

The track and field team has continued to progress and in 2010, it sent an Ottawa school board best 19 athletes and 5 relay teams to OFSAA.

In 2008, Nathan Lam and Brian Chen tied for first place in the junior boys' 100-metre freestyle with a time of 58.48 seconds at the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association swimming championships.[15]

In 2011, Nathan Lam, Kashtin Patterson, Cody Lombardo and Brian Chen placed eighth in the senior boys' 4x50-metre freestyle relay at the Ontario Federal of School Athletic Association short-course swimming championships in Toronto.[16]

The Colonel By Reach for the Top team won provincials in 2001, and has attended Reach for the Top and Quiz Bowl events consistently. The Reach for the Top team at Colonel By participated in provincials in 2014, coming in the top ten.[17] Colonel By's Quiz Bowl team has also consistently achieved success, winning the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 Quiz Bowl Provincial Championships.[18][19] The team also tied for 21st at the 2015 High School National Championship Tournament.[20]