CAS is at the heart of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. With its holistic approach, CAS is designed to strengthen and extend students’ personal and interpersonal learning from their early years. CAS is organised around the three strands of creativity, activity and service defined as follows,
Exploring and extending ideas leading to an original or interpretive product or performance
Physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle.
Collaborative and reciprocal engagement with the community in response to an authentic need.
Each individual student has a different starting point and different needs and goals. A CAS Programme is, therefore, individualized according to students’ interests, skills, values and background. All CAS students are expected to maintain and complete a CAS Portfolio as evidence of their engagement with CAS, however, it is not formally assessed.
Students engage in CAS experiences involving one or more of the three CAS strands. A CAS experience can be a single event or an extended series of events. Furthermore, students undertake a CAS project of at least one month’s duration that challenges students to show initiative, demonstrate perseverance and develop skills such as collaboration, problem-solving and decision making.