DP 1:

Last year marked the beginning of our last 2 years of high school. It also meant the beginning of our journey through the DP program. Now as we begin this new academic year I feel now is the time to reflect on the previous year and set some goals for myself this year.

Dp 1 for me was quite a challenging year, in particular, the second semester. During the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, OSC switched to a Distance Learning Program (DLP) to allow students to continue learning despite the lockdown that was brought into effect by the Sri Lankan government. Whilst the prospect of staying home and working seemed very enjoyable at the start, I personally soon came to understand just how much lockdown hindered our ability to progress through the syllabus at the pace we needed to be going. It also wasn’t as fun as I had hoped it would be, hours of zoom calls and constant time on the computer was incredibly exhausting. Despite this with the support of our teachers we were able to cover a lot of course work and 50% of our extended essays just as summer break rolled around.

Goals for DP 2:

Given the current situation with COVID- 19, some of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of last year can not be fulfilled, so I feel now would be a good time to go back and amend them so I am able to achieve the CAS requirement of Creativity, Activity, and Service effectively this year.

Activity:

The goals I set for myself last year were centered around SAISA competitions I planned to participate in. In particular the SAISA swimming and badminton championships. I can say that I managed to achieve all the goals I set for myself. In terms of swimming, I had set a few times that I wanted to achieve for my main events (100m free, 50m free, and the 50 backstrokes). Seeing that the SAISA swimming season has now been canceled, this goal needs to be amended for the new academic year. In order to stay active this year, I decided that I would start going to the gym more often and following a pre-planned workout routine. I want to focus on becoming a better badminton player so in the gym I will work on improving my endurance and strength. This goal helps fulfill CAS learning outcomes 3 and 5 of planning and initiating a CAS activity and remain dedicated to activity despite the uncertainty brought on by Covid-19. In addition to this in order to remain active despite the lack of SAISA sports, my friends and I have planned to meet once a week every Sunday to play some badminton for 2 hours. This will help me to gauge if my work in the gym is benefiting my playing and illuminate what I need to work on.

 

Creativity:

Last year I relied heavily upon after school activities to help wind down and remain creative. As of right now, it is unclear if the school will be holding after school activities so in order to remain creative, I need to find something to do outside of school. I touched on this in my last blog but during quarantine, I experimented with the piano. I use to take weekly lessons and I had memorized a few songs. Now I am making an effort to play for 30 minutes a week to see just how much I can recall. This goal helps to fulfill the 3rd CAS goals of Initiating and Planning a CAS activity

Service:

Last year I had the goal of becoming a service leader of the RCCI service group. I am now one of the 3 leaders alongside Anargi and Iris. Our service group is based on face to face interaction with the RCCI students. They come over every Thursday and we spend 1 hour of service time with them. Given the new COVID-19 protocols the students are no longer able to come in. This is a shame as a lot of the ideas and activities we had for this year can no longer be done. However, in an effort to still remain active with our service Anargi, Iris and I believe we should shift the focus of our service from activity to awareness. We had plans last year for RCCI T-shirts to help raise awareness about the school and its students. The proceeds from these shirts could also go into purchasing sports and art equipment to donate, so even though we won’t be there with them they can hopefully still enjoy themselves at their own school. This idea is still being discussed amongst our service group but it seems like the best way to use our service group given the current circumstances. This helps to fulfill the CAS learning outcomes 4 (Showing perseverance in a CAS experience), 5 (recognize the skills and benefits of working collaboratively), and 6 (demonstrating engagement in issues of global significance)