[1] The school was named after Sir Robert Vyner, a former Lord Mayor of London and goldsmith-banker who made the second St. Edward's Crown.

Sporting successes in the past have included successive English Schools Senior Netball Championships – 1970 and 1971; a British Athletics International, Mark Naylor, who held the British National Record in the high jump and competed in the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympic Games, a British Youth Shot Put champion [1970], trained by 'Pete' Ferguson, who also taught Latin and English Literature, and married an Art teacher at the school, Miss Woodmansey; as well as numerous Borough and County Championships, team and individual, plus Borough and County representatives at football, netball, athletics, rugby union, and other sports.

The plan was to bring together about ten musicians with a varied competence in music to play some Jazz, Dixieland or Glenn Miller style arrangements and very quickly the band increased in size to around twenty five players.

Large and small ensembles from the VSB have played more than 325 gigs since 1988 and raised in excess of £50,000 for a variety of charities, as well as entertaining audiences both local and further afield including successful tours of France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.

Roy Castle joined the band for a one-off concert in 1991 to raise money for the Chiltern and Hillingdon Cheshire Homes charity.