Creativity, Activity, Service International Baccalaureate

CAS students undertake activity in three areas:

• Creativity – this entails exploring and extending ideas to produce an original or interpretive product or performance.
• Activity – sustained physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle, for example participation in team or individual sports or exercise.
• Service – involves voluntary work within the community in response to a need.

CAS experiences must last at least one month but are typically sustained for longer and include both planned and unplanned as well as individual and ongoing experiences.

The ethos behind the CAS is about ongoing personal growth and contribution, with students extending on from areas of personal interest that are not part of the subject requirements for their IBDP courses.

CAS experiences are enjoyable and rewarding and as such students are expected to be involved in a project or projects that cover each area of CAS during the programme.

There is support available in the form of the school’s CAS handbook, information sessions and meetings. On top of this, students have formal interviews with the school’s CAS coordinator/adviser to support their thinking and planning around their experiences. Students are required to complete a CAS portfolio as evidence of their engagement with CAS, which is essentially a record of evidence of what they have done alongside their personal reflections.

The following are some examples of the sorts of CAS experiences students undertake. Note that some projects can combine CAS areas.

• Creativity: As student undertakes and completes a course in journalism.
• Creativity: A student develops an app-based game for Android users.
• Creativity and Service: A student group plans, designs and creates a mural for a local. community centre or school.
• Activity: Students organize and participate in a sports team including training sessions and matches against other teams.
• Activity: Students organise and develop a running and exercise group.
• Service: Students set up and conduct tutoring for other students in need.
• Service: Students organise and volunteer to lead reading support sessions in a local infant school.
• Service: Student help organise and participate in a local beach or park clean up
• Service and Activity: Students plan and participate in the planting and maintenance of a garden with members of the local community.
• Creativity, Activity and Service: Students rehearse and perform a dance production for a community retirement home.