Hello Juniors and Seniors! A belated, "Welcome back to school!" I hope that you've all gotten into the groove of things by now, and are well under way with your Planning Forms for the year.

To kick the year off, we're updating our Activity Proposal form. It is now an editable PDF file that you can open and fill in using any pdf reader, like Preview for Mac users, or Adobe Reader (download it for free here). Hopefully, this will make it more accessible and easier to use compared to the Word document version last year, especially for those who do not have access to Microsoft Word. You can check out (and download) the new form by clicking the image on the right, or from the Proposal page of this site.

A handful of our other forms are going through the same upgrade process to make them all more universally accessible, so please make sure to download the new forms by the end of the week. Next in line is the Year Planning form, which will be available for download by tomorrow morning.

Please read through the short explanation below about the final essay you need to write about your whole CAS experience. Don't forget to finish the Completion form to identify your evidences for each learning outcome specified. These two documents are needed before you have the final interview with your advisers. Once your final essay and completion form are posted on your blog (or turned in) then we can proceed with your final interview. Advisers will need to read through your final essay before confirming your interview date and time. Please keep me/us posted on your progress.

At the end of the two-year CAS programme, each IB Diploma student is required to write a clear and complete critical reflection on your entire CAS experience based on the 8 Learning Outcomes. The essay should be approximately 500 words. 


Your essay should address:

• The extent to which you have developed personally as a result of your activities.
• The understanding, skills and values acquired through the experience.
• How others may have benefited from your activities.
• Initiative, planning and organization involved in your CAS experiences.
• The amount of effort and commitment you have displayed.
• The degree of personal challenge in your activities.

See me for any questions or clarifications.

Oh wow. It has been quite a while since I was last able to make time for this blog. My sincere apologies to those who actually check in for updates or reminders. I think I have things under (better) control now, so hopefully I can be more consistent here as well.

SENIORS: Get your Completion forms in, ASAP. You should be well into your final CAS essay (more on this in another post) by now, so please finish up and sign up for your final interviews. 

JUNIORS: Check in with your advisers if you haven't done your second interviews yet. You should be having conversations about learning outcomes and possible summer break activities that you can do for your CAS. Keep your blogs up-to-date with journals for your current activities, and make sure to write your final reflections for finished projects, share them with your supervisors, and ask for an evaluation. If you need help or have questions about any of these, check with your advisers (or with me).

More posts to come regarding: POCCH outreach, final CAS essay. Stay tuned!