DP1 has come and gone and now I begin my final year of high school. I’m a bit afraid, but I still want to enjoy my last year of school before college, and part of that is engaging in my non-academic interests and developing my understanding of myself and the world around me. Below are the various projects and activities I have planned, what I hope to do in them, and what I hope to gain from them.

Creativity

The Advocate

I was a founder for my schools literary magazine, The Advocate, and have been its chief editor for several years now. In this activity I collaborate with several other students to host literary competitions with various prizes, this activity is focused on encouraging literary creativity within OSC. For more on this activity please check out my previous post on it. What I’ve been working on from the end of last year and plan to continue this year is shifting the Advocate away from just literary competitions, towards being a literary workshop to experiment with new creative projects. This should look like a weekly session where a different student each week brings in a different literary exercise or inspiration that the rest use to inspire a poem or short story. I believe this would be a good project because there is a lot of inactive time in the Advocate when waiting for competition submissions that could be better used. I believe it should be relatively easy to engage the Advocate in this project with two to three weeks, but I will need to experiment with it over time to make it more engaging. I hope that from this activity I will be able to develop my ability to work collaboratively with others, develop my ability to plan and initiate learning experiences, and most importantly develop my skill as a creative writer.

Senior Production

This year will be my second time participating in the schools theater production, whereas last year I played Oberon for Midsummer Night’s Dream, this year I will be playing a role in the musical Oliver (though I’m not yet sure what role). I hope to use this experience to develop my ability as an actor, and my ability to collaborate with others. Because I have taken part in it before the acting wont be a new experience, but unique to the previous years I may also have to sing as it is a musical. This is an entirely alien skill to me that I hope to develop with practice.

Activity

Archery

I’ve been training for archery since March of this year and have now successfully moved into the 18m range with occasional tries at 30m, I hope to progress to 30m before December 2019. I believe this is achievable based on my current progress in my technique and ability to use higher poundage bows, I can now use 30 pounds for an hour and a half session. I have ironed out the most significant flaws in my technique like the tendency to occasionally release with by opening my fingers instead of simply pulling back and letting the string pull itself out, just one example of a flaw in technique, but still have difficulty maintaining this consistently. To improve my shooting I to practice the proper technique until  am able to draw, aim and release with increased consistency. Archery has been a test of perseverance for me this year as I slowly develop my skill in the sport.

Service

Checkmates

Going into my final year as the leader of the checkmates service, after three years developing it, I am satisfied that the service has a good range of both experienced and new members to keep the service running smoothly and to ensure the service is kept running after I leave. My first aim to be achieved before November is of course to introduce this years students to the basics of chess, just have them all familiar with the way each piece moves, attentive to basic mistakes and ideally beginning to make moves taking into account their opponents potential responses.  It is not ideal that the Christmas break will interrupt the class, and likely require revision after the return, but I am confident that we can finish the basics before then. Besides this my major goal for this year is to create a formal test to differentiate between beginner and intermediate students, whereas in previous years we have simply judged based on occasional impressions of individual matches. This test would include ability complete basic end game puzzles within a set time frame, and winning 3/4 matches against other chosen students. Maintaining this system would require a record of the match history of the players, which will be started ideally by the beginning of November, or if not then January. While of course an advanced level would also be needed eventually, this is unlikely to be necessary until at least February of next year. Through Checkmates we aim to engage with and provide a unique opportunity to kids from less privileged backgrounds.

CAS Project

This year for my CAS project I am helping with the organization of OSC’s UN day activities, this includes the organization of a flag parade, finding guest speakers and the creation of various UN themed videos and various other projects, however while I will be helping with these my primary responsibility will be to lead the team creating student led presentations for grades 8-10. Last year the theme of Green Technology was chosen by the COMUN group which was derived from the larger UN sustainable developoment goal of affordable and clean energy, this year we decided to focus on gender equality and focus the 8-10 presentations on the equal pay movement. For more information on how I plan to achieve my CAS goal of creating focused, informative and entertaining presentations click here.