2019 Highlands Group on Piduratalagala (Sri Lanka’s highest peak). Photo taken by Mr. Lockwood.

Time indeed went by pretty fast and without even realizing it, the end of my IB journey has come. During this journey CAS played a vital role in keeping me engaged with extra circular activities and allowed me to explore different aspects of experience. Writing CAS blogs were truly helpful in keeping those memories of hard work and are very prestigious. During the past 2 years I was able to participate in various different activities and I was able to get out of comfort zone. My major CAS goal from the start of the IB was developing and improving my technical and athletic skills and from analyzing my CAS journey, I think I was pretty successful in choosing and focusing on activities which helped me achieve my major goal, throughout the 2 years I dedicatedly focused on various SAISA sports and COMUN tech. However, I also participated in other non-athletic and tech activities which helped me get out of my comfort zone. CAS focuses on 7 different learning outcomes and expects students to address them in our CAS blogs. I was able to address most of the learning outcomes in my CAS blogs and here are the specifics;

1) Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

Learning outcome 1 was the most dominant learning outcome which I frequently addressed. During the past 2 years I was able to identify my own strengths and areas for growth in mostly sports and tech. More specifically in COMUN Tech, when working as the Deputy Head of Tech, I identified my strengths and developed my growth in Photoshop, photo and videography, along with a bit of programming skills. Along with that managing the tech during assemblies and COMUN related functions were also aspects where I developed my growth. Being a member in event crew for SAISA hosted at OSC was also an opportunity where I developed my technical skills in taking photo and videos. Other than tech, athletics was a category where I frequently mentioned learning outcome 1. Since the past years I haven’t travelled for any SAISAs but was actively involved in all training sessions, during the IB I participated in SAISA trainings for volleyball, football, and track and field, but I also have been involved with basketball prior to IB. In all these athletic sessions, which I’ve posted on my CAS blog, I reflected on the technical areas I needed to improve on such as timing, positioning, and communicating in football and volleyball (more specific technical areas are written in individual CAS blogs). Learning outcome 1 was the most achieved in my CAS journey and I think it’s mostly because my goals which were to improve my technical and athletic skills. This outcome perfectly demonstrates and addresses my goals for CAS.

Tech Team at work. Taken by Taneishq

2) Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

Learning outcome 2 was also an important outcome for my goals because there were a lot of challenges which I faced while participating in tech activities, athletics, and service. Joining COMUN Exco in tech was a challenge in itself due to the high quality of skill and time required from every tech member. All my COMUN CAS blogs were able to address learning outcome 2 because every blog on COMUN had a challenge which I faced. Such as learning new features in photoshop during the practice debates was challenge because I had to learn and produce outputs at the same time for the Exco. I certainly did develop new skills in all COMUN sessions because I learned something new every class with the rest tech team. In athletics joining volleyball was a challenge for me because I had never played volleyball in a school team, the challenges in this was with learning the sport, rules, and team coordination. Even in service, designing the Recycling and Sustainability t-shirt was a challenge because I didn’t have a base nor any build up to start from. Initializing the design and creating a template was the challenging part in the service t-shirt. This shows that learning outcome 2 was quite valuable and are addressed in my CAS posts.

Warming up on the court. Taken by Josh

3) Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

In almost all CAS activities I’ve done in the past 2 years, planning was an necessary element. Such as all the activities stated above with service, athletics, and tech, planning was required at every stage. For example, when doing livestream for SAISA girls volleyball, I had to plan the organization of the live stream setup. For service t-shirt I had to plan the due dates and process of achieving the goal. This shows that learning outcome 3 was always addressed in almost all of my CAS posts. Such that even when designing ID cards for COMUN Exco, I had to plan out the process and idea for designing. Learning outcome 3 was also very important in integrating my athletics sessions with the usual day routine. I had to create plans on managing school work with athletics, along with planning on the field. This outcome was addressed in my CAS posts as I always reflected on my planning process. This outcome was heavily addressed during my CAS project of creating a website for my service because I had to plan various aspects of web development, such as the various information and webpages, coding, etc.

Homepage. Taken by author

4) Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

Many of my activities on the CAS blog address learning outcome 4 because most of them require commitment. All sports sessions I joined required a commitment for 3 months, service required a 2 year long, and COMUN required a year long commitment. For example, to show my commitment to COMUN, I not only addressed this learning outcome on the blogs but have consistence posts reflecting all the events in COMUN throughout the year. Even in events such as event crew, I was committed for all SAISA days. I think this learning outcome plays an important role because it taught me the importance of commitment for achieving success.

5) Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

Learning outcome 5 was a major one in most of my CAS blogs. All my participation in athletics, service, and technical activities, required collaboratively working. For example, in service I was able to demonstrate my technical skills in designing t-shirts but the benefit of working on this with other members of the service lead to a suitable design for our service’s purpose. To demonstrate my skills in football, a team collaboration was required to play and practice. In all my CAS blogs I did focus on reflecting on how team collaboration was very helpful in achieving the goal. The significance of learning outcome 5 was very heavy throughout the IB because not only on field, even in classrooms working collaboratively is an important factor for learning.

6) Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

Learning outcome 6 was seen less on my CAS blog but it was addressed mostly with service posts. Such as the semester service reflections addressed learning outcome 6 because I reflected on our service’s engagement with recycling issues in the world and its significance. Even the t-shirt I designed addressed this learning outcome because the logo, message, and color combination were aimed to promote reducing carbon footprint. This outcome was also embedded during our DP orientation trip because we encountered many issues with global significance during our trip. Other activities where learning outcome 6 was important were environment day, and waste-management project. I think from the goals I had for CAS, I was quite busy in focusing on technical and athletic side more than service activities for which I couldn’t address much of learning outcome 6 but I think this learning outcome is very essential because engaging with global issues will be beneficial for us in the long run.

7) Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Learning outcome 7 was embedded in all my posts because ethics is required in all fields where group collaboration exists. This outcome has a lot of importance in building team work and moving towards success, such as during my collaboration with the tech team for COMUN, we had many ups and downs with the system but we had to support each other at every step we could. Even in all the sports I participated in were team sports, volleyball, football, where the choice of ethics in action we take among each other was to be recognized. Ethical thought is always required where there is a collaboration because everyone has different opinions and thoughts but ethical decision should be common in everyone when taking decisions.

All executive technology members of Colombo Model United Nations 2019 in one picture. Picture taken by Virath

As an ending I’m proud with all the activities I was able to participate in the 2 years. CAS helped me broaden my knowledge and allowed me to experience a lot more than what I thought. CAS certainly developed me as an individual, student, and a leader. Now when I look back, the CAS blog represents my personality and my identity. I feel thankful to be a part in all the after school activities and service I was enrolled in and I appreciate all the efforts from my coaches and teachers who helped me increase my potential.