URGENT: CAS and IB requirements

[ForeverConfused]

So, at our school, the CAS forms consist of Form A (which is just the activity/supervisor/hours) Form B (proposal) Form C (Daily log of learning outcomes) Form D1 and D2 (which is basically the reflection after the activity is completed).

The main issue I have is Form C, which is a daily account of what we did/what we learned etc. I'm in the Student Council and I have a meeting twice every week. My CAS coordinator said I could just log every week for that activity, but almost a year would have gone by and I have done absolutely zero daily logs.

So i was wondering if that will actually affect my CAS journal? I mean, what does the IB look at? and do ALL Cas journals go to the IB or just a few from every year? What must we have in order to pass CAS?

Any help would be much appreciated (and may even avoid a crazy panic attack!)

[Julie]

Everything gets sent to the IBO. I don't think it will affect your CAS journal. I did Student Council and didn't journal at all. Instead, I wrote one reflection essay at the end of IB1 and one at the end of IB2 specifically for student council. In order to pass CAS you need, firstly, the hours, generally divided 50-50-50. You need a supervisor to sign off any CAS hours you get, and you need some form of reflection. I didn't do logs for anything except when I was a TA for a math class, even then I wasn't very consistent, yet I am known for having one of the best CAS journals/reflections. I would suggest just writing up an essay (a few paragraphs, doesn't have to be long) about your experience in Student Council as a whole.

[dessskris]

My school requires me to write pretty much the same number of CAS forms and I believe yours are exactly the same with mine in terms of the contents.

I actually do my CAS logs (your form C) daily, and my CAS diary (your form D1 maybe) weekly. It is the candidate’s responsibility to update their CAS logs regularly. So that is your fault. If you have a friend in the student council who logs CAS hours from stuco too, try to copy their CAS log. Otherwise you have no choice, make up your CAS log.

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Evaluation

The most important aspect of evaluation is self‑evaluation by the student.

The school should provide students with formative feedback on progress and offer guidance on future activities. The school also makes the final decision on completion, which is reported to the IB regional office. There is no other assessment of student performance in CAS.

The IB regional office systematically monitors school CAS programmes and provides feedback to the school.

Recording and reporting

The school will record the completion decision for each student, noting the evidence for each learning outcome. This decision is reported to the regional office, as specified in the Handbook of procedures for the Diploma Programme.

Where a school is required to submit sample student CAS records to the regional office, as part of the regular monitoring process, the records required will be:

• the progress form
  
• the completion form
  
• up to 10 sample pages from the student’s ongoing documentation.

(CAS Guide; 2010; page 8, 11-12)

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To directly answer your questions: yes it will affect your CAS journal. The school does decide whether you pass CAS or not and the IBO is just monitoring your school CAS. Your school definitely wants you to complete all your forms, so you cannot not have your form C. If you do not write your form C and just write the reflections (form D) instead, your school will not be happy and may not let you pass CAS. As you actually said the school wants your log to be written at least once a week, so do that. Not all of your journals will be sent to IBO, only those records listed above.

[ForeverConfused]

Thanks for the really helpful information!

I guess I need to stop being lazy and start my CAS logs.

Our CAS coordinator just left in the middle of the school year, so now everything is really messy.

But anyway, thank you so much for the info!