Concerning the New CAS

[lindieeluieee]

In my school, the candidates of 2010, have been told that we are to follow an entirely different CAS system for our IB. Instead of having to complete 150 hours of Creativity, Action and Service of no more than 50 hours for one activity, we have to have enough activities (at least one long term) that have to cover all the criteras of CAS.

This means that as long as you do a long term and it constitutes all the sides of CAS, it can be one activity only.

For example, say you are part of the Student council. You "creatively" create posters to advertise a marathon fundraiser (Creativity), you organise the marathon (Service) and you take part in the marathon (Action), and that will be everything you'd have to do for CAS for the entire IB (if you span it over certain time period). Even if all this takes a total of 10 hours.

How weird is that? This is what our school is going by now, yet I've been reading some posts and it seems as though some schools are still going by the 150 hours CAS. Is this the case or not?

[biochem]

My school is doing the 150 hours AND the new rules. We have to earn our hours, but also have to recognize those areas CAS requires.

[lindieeluieee]

hm... weird. We were only told to follow the new guidelines. And that's it.

[KewlKidV]

We have the new system as well. I would've much preferred the 150 hours, so much easier.

[lindieeluieee]

Sameee. I have soooo many activities, and I would have gotten 150 hours easily.

[IBSQUARED]

I haven't heard of the new rules, and I am graduating next year (2010). Our IBC only told us that we need atleast 150 CAS hours; 50 creativity, 50 action, 50 service.

[CodeRed15]

I gotta agree with IBSQUARED, my school's in Canada and I'm graduating in 2010 too and I gotta admit that our school han't told us anything yet.

[IBStuck]

my little sister graduates in 2010 and they are doing the old system, but they were told about the new one.... it is odd. i think they are allowed to do the new one if they have to.

[Tilia]

We're going according to the new system, but we have to do approximately 150 hours, even though they tell us that we shouldn't be hunting hours, they're not most important. They also want us to have more than one activity in each area. But are you guys doing a project?

Edited January 27, 2009 by Tilia

[CommeDesEnfants]

We just need 150 hours; on our forms, there's actually no place to record what kind of hours we got, and we were never told to keep track. =/

[Chesire_Cat]

They told us that we also have to do the old 50 hours requirements on top of the new one...

[JourneyTo]

We're doing the new CAS as well-i kind of like it; before doing ib, I didnt like the 150 hour CAS system and this one seems to reflect the IB principles or what have you more.

[Chelleee]

mm i haven't heard of these new rules, our school still follows the 150 hrs.

but ill ask the 2010 candidates, but i'm pretty sure they follow the 150 hrs to, hrms, maybe it's your school.

[mentalcorridors]

I'm also a candidate of 2010 and my school follows the new guidelines

good thing is that my school doesn't do hours anymore either but it sets its own rules:

1 CAS Project - Self initiated project, concerning 2 areas of CAS

3 Majors for C A and S - Long term

and 6 Minors for C A and S - 2 for each area, one off activities

so all in all we probably do more that the 150 hours AND we have to fulfill the 8 learning outcomes through our activities

I suppose we do get something out of CAS but still, thinking of a project is a real pain

Is this the same for all schools with the guidelines?

[lindieeluieee]

Yeah, we have the same guidelines. What I don't understand is that since if each person has to come up with their own project and usually this happens to be a charity of some sort, the school is loaded with charity projects but no one is actually doing anything, they write it in their reflections and take a tad bit of initiative and before you know it IB is over and the idea is quickly abandoned. There are cases of very few successful activities, where the students are but overall, the new CAS is a mess. We already have so much stress from all the work, why add more? Plus, it doesn't really come to anything in the 'long term'.

[laryxle]

We're doing the new CAS at my school and i'm in the first batch of IB students at my school so it's doubly confusing. The CAS co-ordinator is the head of community services at my school so everyone has heaps of S they can do but the school is kind of vague on what counts. They told us we should have at least 75 hours on each by the end of next year which I think was weird, but now they apparently want us to do at least 3 hours a week of normal CAS activities but we have to have a project running over the diploma course which covers all three areas of CAS as well as focusing on one of the IBO's global issues. I'm doing quite a lot of activities already and I don't exactly want to have to do this long-term project but I'll see what happens.

[Eternalx]

In my school, the candidates of 2010, have been told that we are to follow an entirely different CAS system for our IB. Instead of having to complete 150 hours of Creativity, Action and Service of no more than 50 hours for one activity, we have to have enough activities (at least one long term) that have to cover all the criteras of CAS.

This means that as long as you do a long term and it constitutes all the sides of CAS, it can be one activity only.

For example, say you are part of the Student council. You "creatively" create posters to advertise a marathon fundraiser (Creativity), you organise the marathon (Service) and you take part in the marathon (Action), and that will be everything you'd have to do for CAS for the entire IB (if you span it over certain time period). Even if all this takes a total of 10 hours.

How weird is that? This is what our school is going by now, yet I've been reading some posts and it seems as though some schools are still going by the 150 hours CAS. Is this the case or not?

I was party informed about this. I think this new system is much better than the old system but then i don't know if there's any hidden traps behind this.

[IBdoc]

We're still doing the 150 hours. Although our CAS coordinator talked about the new CAS but it won't apply for 2010 candidates at our school, don't ask me why!

[Tilia]

1 CAS Project - Self initiated project, concerning 2 areas of CAS

3 Majors for C A and S - Long term

and 6 Minors for C A and S - 2 for each area, one off activities

Is this the same for all schools with the guidelines?

We have the project thing, but we've been told that it doesn't matter how many project we have as long as we fulfill the outcomes and do CAS regularly (as if they can know that)

[1-2-3]

In my school, the candidates of 2010, have been told that we are to follow an entirely different CAS system for our IB. Instead of having to complete 150 hours of Creativity, Action and Service of no more than 50 hours for one activity, we have to have enough activities (at least one long term) that have to cover all the criteras of CAS.

This means that as long as you do a long term and it constitutes all the sides of CAS, it can be one activity only.

For example, say you are part of the Student council. You "creatively" create posters to advertise a marathon fundraiser (Creativity), you organise the marathon (Service) and you take part in the marathon (Action), and that will be everything you'd have to do for CAS for the entire IB (if you span it over certain time period). Even if all this takes a total of 10 hours.

How weird is that? This is what our school is going by now, yet I've been reading some posts and it seems as though some schools are still going by the 150 hours CAS. Is this the case or not?

Nope.

In our school one activity cannot count for more than 30-40 hours.