Over the past 2 years, I have engaged with all three components of CAS, Creativity, Activity and Service. My goals coming into this year were to continue to be active, particularly by participating in sports such as volleyball and basketball, where my goal specifically was to make both the SAISA Volleyball and Basketball teams and compete in Nepal and Bombay. I achieved both of these with great success, where our volleyball team became the first OSC Boy’s Volleyball team to win in the past 13 years (could be wrong about the exact amount of years) and our basketball team achieved third place which was the first time the boy basketball team earned medals in at least 6 years.

Being part of these teams, got me to engage with LO1: Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth: as my main goal in volleyball was to improve my fitness so that I could be on the court as long as possible as well as increase my on-court awareness. I think the more matches we played and through many practices my fitness gradually increased but I realized that I was more confident on the court which increased my awareness and willingness to call for a ball. This improved my volleyball skill greatly as

I am now a lot more vocal which has helped me engaged with LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively. By being more vocal I expressed my ability to collaborate with my teammates and us wining more points was evidence of that as well as I was selected as captain for the basketball team. This demonstrated my ability to lead in a collaborative environment and being able to organize and resolve issues during our practices.

My goals in service were not achieved however this year of service has been successful in which new goals were established. My goal for service was to help establish a relationship with the Vidyaloka school and start building furniture and infrastructure to help improve the learning environment in the school. Sadly this was not achieved however as part of my CAS project we raised money that will be dedicated to future projects with the Vidyialoka school after I leave.

However, this year in service, my service group joined the Eco-schools committee in our school and took on the garden bed project as well as helped our school become the first Eco-School in Sri Lanka. This helped me explore the LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance. Although my original service goals were not achieved, I learned a lot in exploring service this year, particularly communicating with a UN recognized organization and understanding how we can better help our school in a multitude of ways.

My goal for creativity was to explore how as a leader of my service can I better create and organize projects to maximize the services group’s time. I think that I did a better job of being creative as a leader, particularly during my CAS Project, when having to find solutions to when people canceled on us on the day of the fundraiser and being able to display critical thinking skills as a leader. This expressed how I explored LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience, which I talk a lot about during my CAS Project post. I would have hoped to find time this year to explore other areas of creativity, for instance, photography however felt I never provided myself with enough time to explore such activities.

Overall I think I have effectively explored and learned a lot through CAS the past two years and wanted to give a particular thank you to my service teacher, Mr.Leblanc for helping to enable me and my service leaders to strive for success and put in maximum efforts for our cause.