THE REQUIREMENTS OF CAS

• Creativity

Exploring and extending ideas leading to an original or interpretive product or performance. Creativity will come from the student’s talents, interests, passions, emotional responses, and imagination; the form of expression is limitless. This may include visual and performing arts, digital design, writing, film, culinary arts, crafts and composition. Students are encouraged to engage in creative endeavors that move them beyond the familiar, broadening their scope from conventional to unconventional thinking.

• Activity

Physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle. Students are encouraged to participate at an appropriate level and on a regular basis to provide a genuine challenge and benefit. Students who regularly participate in suitable activity experiences are encouraged to develop and extend their participation. Students could expand personal goals, explore different training models to enhance their existing sport or become involved in a new sport.

• Service

Collaborative and reciprocal engagement with the community in response to an authentic need. The aim of the “Service” strand is for students to understand their capacity to make a meaningful contribution to their community and society. Through service, our students develop and apply personal and social skills in real-life situations involving decision-making, problem-solving, initiative, responsibility, and accountability for their actions.

Four types of service action

It is recommended that our students engage with different types of service within their CAS programme. These types of action are as follows.

• Direct service: Student interaction involves people, the environment or animals. For example, this can appear as one-on-one tutoring, developing a garden in partnership with those in need, or working in an animal shelter.

• Indirect service: Though students do not see the recipients of indirect service, they have verified their actions will benefit the community or environment. For example, this can appear as re-designing a non-profit organization’s website, writing original picture books to teach a language, or nurturing tree seedlings for planting.

• Advocacy: Students speak on behalf of a cause or concern to promote action on an issue of public interest. For example, this may appear as initiating an awareness campaign on hunger, performing a play on replacing bullying with respect, or creating a video on sustainable water solutions.

• Research: Students collect information through varied sources, analyse data, and report on a topic of importance to influence policy or practice. For example, they may conduct environmental surveys to influence their school, contribute to a study of animal migration, compile effective means to reduce litter in public spaces, or conduct social research by interviewing people on topics such as homelessness, unemployment or isolation.

A CAS Project must:

• Be collaborative and can address any single strand of CAS, or combine two or all three strands

• Last at least one month from planning to completion

• Follow the 5 CAS stages with evidence of each

• Include a risk assessment

Students can initiate other projects in other areas, for example starting a new Global Concern group, choreographing a dance show, organising and choreographing a fashion show to raise money for a Global Concern group, etc.…

The duration of the CAS Project

A minimum of one month is recommended for a CAS project, from planning to completion. CAS projects of longer duration can provide even greater scope and opportunities for all participants are encouraged, if time allows and a healthy balance is struck.

How to determine if an experience is CAS?

It ‘is CAS’ if the experience

• Fits in one or more strands

• Is based on interests or skills

• Gives an opportunity to develop the IB learner profile attributes (inquirer, knowledgeable, thinker, communicator, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-taker, balanced, reflective)

• Is enjoyable

• Allows reflection and growth

• Allows learning outcome(s) to be addressed

It ‘is not CAS’ if the experience

• Is part of the student academic programme

• Is mundane, repetitive

• Is part of a religious devotion or involves proselytizing

• Is passive, such as visits to museums or the theatre unless relevant to a project

• Has anything to do with the family, the holidays (except for organised courses, guided trekking…)

• Is raising money with no particular aim

• Could cause friction between community groups

• Is working in an old people’s or children’s home and the student

• Has no idea of how the home operates

• Has no contact at all with the old people or children

• Actually does no service for other people.