Is your CAS experience a viable one?

Get into the habit of ticking off this checklist early on! You don't want to waste valuable time on an experience that doesn't even count.

Is your CAS experience...

Applicable within at least one of the 3 CAS strands?
Based on a personal interest, skill, talent or opportunity for growth?
Able to prove opportunities to develop the IB Learner Profiles?
Incorporating all of the CAS stages, including investigation & planning, before undertaking the experience?
Specific, with a meaningful goal in mind?
Something you are to demonstrate ongoing evidence for?
Separate from your academic requirements?
Challenging, taking you out of your comfort zone?

YES

Make your experience count

Here are some ways to change your experience planning to fit the criteria:

Make the goal specific and quantifiable
- Instead of "improve my running" (what counts as improving?), try saying "improve my endurance and the distance I can run" (you can take screenshots of a fitness tracker on your phone or watch!)
Do something that you are interested in!
- It's much easier to write about something that you actively enjoy doing; you'll demonstrate engagement and evidence of growth just by demonstrating your enjoyment of an experience.
You can make things you already do into a CAS experience but you must add CAS elements to it.

Example:

If you do basketball training on a regular basis, for creativity you could create a tutorial of basketball drills for beginners that could be used in a school club. You could consult with a sports teacher on what they would think could work for the students and you would be working on developing your filming and editing skills. This could also be considered as one of your service activities if completed as described as you would be fulfilling a genuine need, providing a useful resource. You would still need to consider other forms of service within the wider community though.

What is not CAS?

Any experience for which a student receives a grade in a class our counts towards your IB qualification e.g. your Group 4 project cannot count.
An activity for which a student is personally rewarded, such as: babysitting, obtaining a driving licence, a first aid course.
A passive activity such as a visit to a museum, the theatre, an art exhibition, a concert, watching a sport event or walking without a plan.
All forms of duty within the family e.g. doing the cleaning, washing up, helping grandparents, etc.
Activities that lack meaningful outcomes.
If you have done no service that supports a global issue (LO6). Some of your service should be for an organisation/charity/NGO, not just helping with projects at school, and preferably for a period of time. For service you should identify and authentic need. It should benefit the wider community.
All CAS should be diverse, not the same experience all year round. You cannot do 'tennis' for a year and no other Activity, for example.