The CAS Programme
The CAS Programme is designed to enable students to achieve a balance between the academic requirements of the IB and life outside the classroom.
Grade 11 and 12 students: CAS is a personal Programme as it highlights your strengths and also allows you to experience new skills, offer your time to others and learn from your activities.
Your reflections on your experiences must be of the highest quality and not pure description. They must take place on a regular basis throughout the experience and enable you to clearly show what you planned to do, what you did, how you did it and what you learned from it. This is essential. The reflections form a key part of the process. It does not matter if something did not go according to plan; what matters are the lessons you learned which allow you to say what you would do differently next time.
You must AIM TO Show a Weekly Commitment
to CAS FOR at least 18 months.
Just for you!
Successful completion of CAS is a requirement for the award of the IB Diploma. While not formally assessed, students reflect on their CAS experiences and provide evidence in their CAS portfolios of achieving the seven learning outcomes.
The CAS programme formally begins at the start of the Diploma Programme and continues regularly, ideally on a weekly basis, for at least 18 months with a reasonable balance between creativity, activity, and service.
All CAS students are expected to maintain and complete a CAS portfolio as evidence of their engagement with CAS. The CAS portfolio is a collection of evidence that showcases CAS experiences and for student reflections; it is not formally assessed.
Completion of CAS is based on student achievement of the seven CAS learning outcomes. Through their CAS portfolio, students provide the school with evidence demonstrating achievement of each learning outcome.
Students engage in CAS experiences involving one or more of the three CAS strands. A CAS experience can be a single event or may be an extended series of events. Further, students undertake a CAS project of at least one month’s duration that challenges students to show initiative, demonstrate perseverance, and develop skills such as collaboration, problem-solving, and decision-making. The CAS project can address any single strand of CAS, or combine two or all three strands.
Students use the CAS stages (investigation, preparation, action, reflection and demonstration) as a framework for CAS experiences and the CAS project.
There are three formal documented interviews students must have with their CAS coordinator/adviser. The first interview is at the beginning of the CAS programme, the second at the end of the first year, and the third interview is at the end of the CAS programme.
CAS emphasizes reflection which is central to building a deep and rich experience in CAS. Reflection informs students’ learning and growth by allowing students to explore ideas, skills, strengths, limitations and areas for further development and consider how they may use prior learning in new contexts.
(OCC CAS Guide)