CAS Final Post
Over the 2 years in DP, there are many curricular’s outside of school that I had focussed on and CAS enabled me to organise and write about those activities. My initial goals had to be altered due to ever changing situations within Sri Lanka. Many changes has to be made to my initial goal to make them more suitable for the situation at hand. The changes caused by the situation around me meant that many of my creativity, activity and service actions had to be changed. Although I had to alter my CAS goals I believe that I still gained the initial skills that I wanted even if they were through different methods.
In terms of creativity, the main part of my creativity in CAS was COMUN. Over the span of CAS I participated in 2 sessions of COMUN in both 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. As the Deputy Head of Media on the Tech Team I was tasked with creating videos, setting up social media pages and taking photos and videos during the conference. I also would aid in helping maintain the COMUN website and the livestreams during conference. This work at times could become very difficult as managing other tasks alongside making videos and the other tasks I mentioned before can become very time consuming and difficult. In terms of learning outcomes and COMUN I would say that COMUN was the most effective in terms of helping me experience most learning outcomes. In COMUN, I had to edit many videos and set up a lot of camera work as well as presentations, if there was previous mistakes I would then learn from them and then correct them in the future. This was done when I had to make new videos and presentations in my second year so I used my prior knowledge to be more efficient as well as making the content and final piece better. (LO1). In COMUN I had to undertake many tasks and would often have to find solutions to problems that I was faced with, I learnt to make a video more fluid by taking videos at different angles and filming in a different manner such as panning up or panning down to make the video easier to edit. I also faced challenges with the presentations and making them the right order though by using new skills I was able to make the challenges solved in an easier manner. (LO2). As a team we would often have to make plans about who was doing what and how to balance the workload and create an efficient plan for the videos and presentations. We did this throughout the COMUN experience as there was a lot to plan, this aided with my planning skills. (LO3). By doing COMUN for 2 years and having a meeting every Tuesday and sometimes more on weekends this shows my commitment. As well as delegate workshops and practice debates right after mock exams. (LO4). COMUN is run by students from different schools and this meant that I would work with other students some who I knew and some who I did not know and this was surprisingly beneficial because it taught me how to work well with others. (L05). In terms of global issues, COMUN has a heavy focus on global issues and by being involved and doing COMUN work this caused me to be more aware of global issues and learn more about them in general. Apart from LO7 COMUN made me develop and learn in all of the other learning outcomes.
For Service, I spent my time in two different services throughout my 2 years in DP. The first being Gecko Net, Gecko Net is a service that specialises in technology and media creation aiding the school and other services. I was in Gecko Net throughout the whole of DP1 and this was a service that I had been participating in since 9th-10th grade, so I was reasonably experienced within the service but I still wanted to develop my photography and editing skills through the service. Due to COVID and not being able to go to school a lot of this service was done online and this limited what I could do in terms of the service as our service like many relied on the physical aspect of school to film and document. So this caused my service experience with Gecko Net to not be as good as it could’ve. The start of DP2 was also not face to face and this meant I was unable to sign up for a service as this was not offered online when we were not in school. When Service went back to face to face I was unable to rejoin Gecko Net so instead I joined Gecko Inc which focuses on teaching local kids how to swim and overall water safety. This was a major shift for me because my service went from something that aided the OSC Community to aiding a specific group of people. Though I did learn many new skills from both service experiences. In terms of learning outcomes I managed to experience many of them during the two services. In Gecko Net I had to evaluate my photography and editing skills and grow from constructive criticism which is a demonstration of LO1. For LO2 I experienced this in both my Gecko Net and Inc experiences. For Gecko Net it was dealing with technical difficulties and overcoming them as well as COVID in general and as for Gecko Inc it was managing the planing sequence. For LO3,4 and 5 those can again be seen in Gecko Net and Gecko Inc as I would have to plan in both subjects, work collaboratively with others and stay committed to the service for an elongated period of time furthermore showing my perseverance with the service. For LO6 only Gecko Inc applies as it focuses on teaching local kids basic water safety which is of high importance due to older situations with tsunami’s and because Sri Lanka is an island.
Finally for activity there was many things that I did even though I did not always document them. Though I did document my basketball journey as well as my fitness journey with Ben. I feel as though these were both cut short and had a lot more potential if they had not be limited due to the situation with COVID which made it very difficult for me to leave the house and find motivation. Within activity I demonstrated learning outcomes which were LO1, when identifying what faults I had mad in terms of form or technique in both basketball and gym workouts, as well as areas for improvement. I also demonstrated LO2 as I faced challenges with COVID and injuries which made it difficult to continue the whole process in a fluid motion but I combatted it in an effective manner by using my other skills. LO3 was another big part of my activity as I would have to plan out a schedule and workout plans for both the basketball training and gym training with Ben. I do believe I also showed LO4 within activity as I persevered and stayed committed as much as I could until my goals were put to a halt. The last learning outcome I demonstrated was LO5 when I worked alongside both my coach and Ben to show more effective and better results in general.
CAS as a whole has been a great experience and has generated life skills and skills that I will carry throughout the future. It enabled me to document my progress in different facets of extracurriculars therefore keeping me more motivated in general. CAS has been an amazing experience and I do believe that I will benefit from what I have learnt. COVID did put a halt to many of my goals but this only made my skills develop as they had to react to change. The CAS skills I have learnt will be embedded into my future life.