CAS stands for innovation, activity, and service. Every IB student is required to complete a CAS program, which must last at least 18 months and can be started as early as the first day of junior year. The Diploma Program’s central component is CAS. The objective is to gain more knowledge about who you are, your assets, your passions, and how you can challenge yourself.

Learn all there is to know about CAS by reading this article.

What Does IB Creativity Action Service Entail?

A key element of the IBDP, CAS (Creativity Action Service) promotes students’ personal and interpersonal growth by giving them opportunities for self-determination and group collaboration.

The IB Diploma Program’s academic rigor is balanced by the importance of CAS, which encourages students to take initiative, persevere, and develop teamwork, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

Each CAS Experience Has 5 CAS Stages

Investigation

In order to consider opportunities for CAS experiences as well as areas for personal growth and development, students identify their interests, skills, and talents. Students look into what they want to do and choose a goal for their CAS experience. For service projects, students choose a need they want to fill.

Preparation

In order to participate in the CAS experience, students must first define their roles and responsibilities, create a plan of action, identify the necessary resources, and set deadlines.

Action

Students carry out their suggestions or plans. This frequently calls for making choices and solving issues. Students may collaborate in groups, pairs, or individually.

Reflection

The students give an account of what took place, convey their emotions, produce thoughts, and pose inquiries. Any time during CAS, reflection can take place to deepen comprehension, support plan revision, help participants learn from the experience, and help participants make explicit connections between their development, successes, and learning outcomes for personal awareness. Thinking things through could result in fresh experiences in the future.

Demonstration

Students make clear what and how they learned and what they have accomplished, for instance by discussing their CAS experience with others informally or formally or by including it in their CAS portfolio. Students solidify their understanding and elicit reactions from others through demonstration and communication.

• The CAS stages provide a framework that enables students to:
• • develop their ability to communicate and collaborate with others
• • experience and recognize personal development
• • develop attributes of the IB learner profile
• • increase self-awareness and empathy
• • explore new and unfamiliar challenges
• • find passions and interests for a balanced lifestyle

The Three Strands Of CAS

Creativity

the process of examining and developing concepts to produce original or interpretive work.

Students have the chance to explore their own sense of original thought and expression through creativity in the CAS. The student’s skills, passions, interests, emotional reactions, and imagination will inspire creativity; there are no restrictions on the possible forms of expression.

This could include writing, film, digital design, writing, performing arts, culinary arts, crafts, and composition. Students are encouraged to take on creative projects that challenge them to think outside the box and shift their perspectives from conventional to unconventional thinking.

Activity

Physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle:

The aim of the “Activity” strand is to promote lifelong healthy habits related to physical well-being. Individual and team sports, aerobic exercise, dancing, outdoor activities, fitness training, and any other physical activity that consciously promotes a healthy lifestyle are all acceptable pursuits.

In order to provide a genuine challenge and benefit, students are encouraged to participate at an appropriate level and frequency.

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. Students learn and practice personal and social skills through service in situations that call for initiative, problem-solving, responsibility, and accountability for their actions.

Service is frequently regarded as one of the most transformative aspects of CAS because it fosters students’ self-awareness, provides a variety of opportunities for interactions and experiences, and fosters opportunities for global-mindedness.

All parties involved in service as part of CAS gain from the experience: students develop their knowledge as they recognize and respond to genuine community needs and the community gains from mutually beneficial cooperation. According to the IB learner profile and mission statement, service promotes the development of skills, attitudes, and values. Thus, CAS service opportunities are unpaid.

When Does CAS Begin?

On day one of their junior years, students start recording their CAS experiences. There is no hour counting for CAS, but you must fill out the Paxon community service form for any activity you want to record as community service hours, including those that will also be recorded for the CAS’s “service” strand.

How Many CAS Hours Do I Need?

For CAS, there is no hourly counting. Instead, over the course of an 18-month period, students should take part in a variety of CAS experiences (with at least one project). Students are not required to complete CAS-related tasks on a daily basis by this. It is advised that students spread their activities out over the course of the 18 months and take part in a variety of CAS experiences.

CAS Students

Russell Franklin