Status Updates and CAS reports

Reports

This week you will receive a CAS report.  It will be sent by email to your parents and you can find it on your CAS portfolio under documents.

CAS experiences

You will also see a a table like this.
It shows your experiences - the strand, the outcomes, number of reflections and status.  An experience only shows as complete when you have uploaded enough evidence and reflection, complete the CAS questions and received a supervisor review.  If you have no supervisor, it will be sent to me to complete.  All on-going experiences should be marked 'approved.'  If they are not, it could be because you have not filled in the details.

Projects

In addition to all the documentation required for normal experiences, a project must have the CAS stages document with evidence for each stage.

Progress

Your overall progress will show with an indicator.  It can be excellent, on track or concern.

• 
  Excellent: CAS project is completed. The student is up-to-date on all experiences with evidence and reflection. Most learning outcomes are covered and the student has experiences for all 3 strands.
• 
  On Track: The CAS project is well underway or nearly completed. The student is up-to-date on most experiences with evidence and reflection. Most learning outcomes are covered and the student has experiences for all 3 strands.

• Concern: Little or no evidence or reflection for experiences or CAS project. Student is not up-to-date on many experiences.

Learning Outcomes

The final section shows the learning outcomes.  Remember that you must cover all 7 to get your IB Diploma.  Where you can see green bars - that means you have reflected or added evidence to support that outcome.  Yellow - means you have not as yet added any evidence or reflection to support the outcome but plan to do so.

If there is no line - that means you have not as yet planned an experience to cover that learning outcome.  Think about how you can do that next term!

You can see in this example that the student hasn't got any plans for learning outcomes 3 and 7.  The student has some evidence/reflection for learning outcomes 1, 4 and 5.  The student has planned to cover learning outcomes 2 and 6.

Summer CAS

Don't forget to contact me if you are thinking about doing some new CAS experience in the summer.  Most of the time I will be checking my emails.

Have a great summer!

Strength and Areas for Growth

Identify own strengths and areas for growth

Learning outcome one is the last one I will explain.  It is about working out what you are good at and the skills which you need to improve.  You might choose this for something like MUN.  Perhaps you are good at planning and organising but not so good at speaking in public.  Or when doing a sport.  You might have good skills in one area, but need to improve in another.  It is important that you explain this when you reflect.  

Remember when you reflect on an experience with this learning outcome that you must mention your strengths and the  areas you are trying to develop more.

Projects

Most projects should be nearing completion by now.  I know that a few of you have projects that will continue into next term - as long as they have started and the CAS stages document is up-to-date that is OK.  You must have a finish date before end of next term and evidence and reflections must be uploaded showing that it is nearly complete if you are to be registered for the IB Diploma.  Students without projects will not be eligible for the full Diploma.

Generation of reports

Next week your interim reports will be generated for CAS.  This will give an outline of what you have planned to do.  Completed outcomes only show if an experience is totally finished - others show as planned.  These will be sent to your parents by email and can be accessed under documents on your CAS portfolios.  At the end of grade 12, you will receive another report, with all your outcomes completed.  This will also include all your supervisor reviews and can be useful for applying for jobs, universities etc.  I spoke to one of our former grade 12s this week and she said that her experience with the school newspaper had helped her to get an internship so even if it feels that CAS is one more thing you have to do - it can be useful later on.

CAS in the summer

Remember it is possible to do CAS in the summer.  You must have evidence, reflections etc to show participation.  Check with me first if you are not sure if something qualifies - you  can send an email.  If you have a supervisor, make sure you get a review from them before finishing the experience.  It doesn't have to be on the CAS completion form - it can just be a letter.  Scan it and add it under reflections and evidence. 

Child Safety

If you are thinking of working with children over the summer (or any other time) please read the following guidelines.  This site also has some ideas about organisations you can contact to do volunteer work.  This is something that really falls under the learning outcome of 'recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions.'

Opportunities

Read more about this here

You can find more volunteer positions at www.volontarbyran.org