What is CAS in the DP                Program?

If you’re a student or a parent who has a student doing the DP Program, you may have heard about CAS, this article will summarize and give you a basic understanding of what it is.

 

CAS is a core component of the DP Program, and it stands for “Creativity, Activity, Service”. It is all about having students involved in experiences out-of-school or in-school. These experiences can be linked to either Creativity(creative thinking, music, arts, writing, …), Activity (physical effort to have a healthier lifestyle), Service (a willing and unpaid support for a community), or a combination of them.

 

An example of a CAS experience is the newspaper club is. It a combination of Creativity and Service strand. Students use and develop their creative thinking for coming up with unique ideas, and then writing them as articles. Then their articles can be shared with the community, which is service, as some of these articles can benefit parents and other students.

A student can also create a CAS experience on a sport that they may enjoy or have been doing even before entering the DP Program, for example, many students do football as a CAS Experience.

 

Students must reflect on their experiences, how did they feel, what has changed in them, and so on… One can choose how they would like to reflect, but they must speak with their CAS Coordinator for guidance. They must also provide evidence for completing the seven learning outcomes. These are the following:

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1. Strength & Growth
   This is for your personal growth (how have you grown from this experience).

2. Initiative & Planning
   Did you take initiative, how did you plan for this experience?

3. Collaborative Skills
   How did you work with others?

4. Ethics of Choices & Actions
   This is about reflecting on the ethics of your choices & actions.

5. Challenge & Skills
   How were you challenged, what did you learn?

6. Commitment & Perseverance
   This is about reflecting on how well you were committed.

7. Global Engagement

 

This is about engagement beyond school, a global engagement.

 

An experience must be linked to at least one of the CAS strands, and achieve at least 1 learning outcome.

 

Students must also create a CAS Project, a project must have at minimum a duration of 1 month. It similar to a CAS experience, but one must achieve at least 2 learning outcomes and with a minimum duration of 1 month. It is compulsory to have at least 1 CAS Project.

 

CAS is not formally assessed, but reflection and evidence of CAS experiences of a student will be sent to the IB to prove that you have done CAS. In the end, it is all about a self-discovery journey, finding new interests, seeing the world in a different way, completing you as a DP IB student.