IB Core: The benefits of CAS

Our Year 13 students have all been actively engaged with their CAS programme now for over 12 months and have completed a wide range of different experiences. Nathalie from Sk this week outlines some of her CAS experiences.

In Year 12 I participated in as many different CAS experiences as possible, because I knew the workload would increase in my last year of IB. I attended conferences, like the servICE conference, which informed students on service projects they can get involved in within Thailand. I continued participating in the football team, and joined Touch Rugby, which I enjoyed very much. Joining new activities allowed me to spend time with people I do not normally talk to in school, which I believe helped me strengthen my collaborative skills.

Tanzania was by far my best CAS experience. It opened a lot of doors for me. I learned how to fund raise properly, which allowed me to get a better understanding for profit and loss in my business management class. I was able to apply my collaboration skills, by talking to other students from other schools and getting out of my comfort zone. I was at the Seeway Project near Arusha, where we helped build a school for special needs children. I got to work with the local people of Arusha, who were very hardworking and showed great resilience, which pushed me to work hard myself.

I believe CAS is included in the IB to help IB students with their growth mindset, commitment and determination skills and awareness of global problems. All of this comes hand in hand with time management, as CAS helps IB students learn to organize themselves around work and having other activities, which is highly important in the future.