IB CAS PortfolioCAS reflections and goals

Simeon Gboun

2014–2015 Harare International School

Personal Goals Page 2

October reflections Page 4

November reflections Page 6

January reflections Page 7

February reflections Page 8

March reflections Page 9

Grade 11 final reflections Page 10

My Personal Goals and plans to meet the 8 IB Learner Outcomes through CAS

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How I plan to meet the eight IB Learner Outcomes:

Inquirer:This year, I will take learning as my day to day habit. Every day I spend in school, and every day I spend at home I will pursue, and make an effort to learn something new. I will research independently, and go more in-depth into any topic, or subject that does not bring meaning or understanding to me.

Thinkers:This year I will apply my thinking skills ‘critically’ and ‘creatively’ in my academics, and in my CAS activities. I will go the extra mile to think outside the box in order to produce my best quality work, and to solve critical problems that arise ethically and fairly.

Communicators:In my group projects I plan to work effectively and collaborate, being a strong member that will always make the effort to produce the best work possible. I will pursue looking at facts and ideas from more than one perspective.

Risk-taker:When the unfamiliar situations arise in my work, like a very high level of difficult work, I will tackle these problems with bravery and courage, without the fear of failure. When I do not succeed, I will tackle the problem again in a different way, until I have succeeded.

Principled: I will respect other individuals in my community, treating everyone fairly and justly with integrity and honesty. I will be ready to take responsibility of my own actions, and be ready to take the consequences of every single action I make.

Caring:I will try my best to understand every individual in the community, with empathy and all due respect. I will be involved in service activities in the school, not just for my CAS, but because I simply want to make a positive change to the lives of the less privileged individuals, and to my work/class mates.

Open-minded: This IB Learner Outcome encourages me to understand and appreciate my own culture and history, at the same time I am open to other perspective and traditions, evaluating a range a points and views, and willing to grow from it. This outcome has always been part of my personality, and I will make sure that I show more of this outcome in academics, CAS and in my personal life.

Balanced:

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In my CAS, and academics, I will not overlook the meaning of intellectual, physical and emotional, and I will balance them out by being thinking always, before making decisions.

My Personal Goals During my 18 months in IB, I plan to be effectively active in CAS, and maintain a good academic record. I will be fully committed and dedicated to the activities I am involved in, making an effort to make a positive impact in the lives of my peers, and the community.

I plan to attend every meeting of my activities, and contribute, sharing my ideas and perspective open-mindedly. I will be willing to accept other individuals’ perspective and ideas, embracing it so that I can grow from this CAS experience. My goal is to be a positive example to my peers, and to the community as a whole, making decisions that will be justly, fair, and have a positive impact on these lives.

I plan to collaborate effectively with my peers in my activities, sharing ideas, points and views. My goal is to be a risk-taker; trying to implement new ideas that have not been tackled yet. When I succeed I will be able to leave a path for others to follow, ameliorating the new ideas, points and views that I have tackled.

Every action that I take, I will be fully ready to take the full responsibility of the consequences. Every action that I take, I am fully aware that there are consequences that follow.

My goal is to develop new skills on a daily basis. These skills that I develop will be part of my learning, and will be used in my life for the future. It will also be used in my academics; learning something new, and acquiring new skills in CAS will be used in my life long experience as a whole.

I know that I will face a lot of challenges, but I am prepared to face them (all my challenges) When problems arise (expected/ unexpected) I will aim to make the best decisions in order to produce the best method in dealing or handling problems, with the help and participation of my peers.

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October Reflections 2013

This month I was fully engaged and active in the Explore Zimbabwe Trip to Juru, in the suburbs of Zimbabwe. This is part of service, as I helped the Juru families with cooking, gardening and other domestic chores. I had the chance to increase my collaboration skills, as I worked effectively with my class mates, particularly Habib Ouane.

In this trip, I also helped the students with literacy: reading and writing. This was a three day event, every afternoon. This allowed me to be an open-minded, as I shared my cultures and believes, and the families and students accepted it, sharing theirs which I accepted, and learnt from.

This experienced allowed me acquire new skills. After helping the students with their literacy, I played sports with them, organizing teams and teaching them how to play Frisbee, a sport they have never played. It was very fun. This enhanced my organizational skills and leadership skills as a whole. I was very transparent.

On the other hand, I have been engaged, and involved with the newspaper, showing full dedication and commitment by attending every meetings and writing articles weekly. This is shown in warthogsworld.com or (http://www.warthogsworld.com/showcase/2013/10/02/new-secretary-general-of-mun-batsirai-matiza/) for specific example.

I have been involved in the sports activity by attending the soccer practice /training sessions with my peers. I have gained new skills, and it has been fun, however, I feel as though I should

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have been more committed and dedicated by attending more practices; as I have missed 2 or 3 training sessions.

Earlier this year we also went to Juru to build the hatches that we will shower in for the future Explore Zimbabwe Trip. This is part of service, as well. Again, I really enjoyed working with my peers, and collaborating.

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November Reflections 2013

This month was successful; I continued participating in my CAS activities. This was the end of the soccer season, and I wrote an article on this: http://www.warthogsworld.com/sports/2013/11/03/the-agony-of-defeat/

The ISSEA volley ball and soccer was over. I continued publishing more articles as well, as shown in warthogsworld.com

On UN Day, my colleague, Simeng Wu, and I were running a quiz and a dress up event. This allowed us to be creative, acquiring new skills. It was a very successful and fun event: many students participated. We had the space to be creative by making the questions for the quizzes, and organizing the event as a whole. We spent weeks making the questions for the students, advertising, by announcing to advisers, and putting up sign-up sheets to encourage students to attend.

This event was very successful; I really do not regret anything about it! This allowed me to be a thinker, part of the IB Learner Outcomes

This article was written in response to the event: http://www.warthogsworld.com/student-life/2013/11/15/unday2013/

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January Reflections:

I have shown my full dedication and commitment to the Students’ Newspaper Club by maintaining the consistency of my articles:

http://www.warthogsworld.com/student-life/2014/01/15/let-us-begin-inspiration-from-warthogs-world/

I wrote this article as to welcome back the scholars from the Christmas break, into the new semester.

This picture is the newspaper crew! More information is on: http://www.warthogsworld.com/student-life/2014/01/08/warthogs-world-wishes-you-another-great-semester/

On the other hand, my peers and I visited Juru again, to help the families with planting of food. It was another successful event, and again, I do not regret anything.

I want to continue like this for next month (February).

I have been participating for interact as well, attending meetings and visiting the orphanages. I have been helping with organizing events, like the Valentine’s Day roses sale, which will be discussed more in the next month reflection.

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February Reflections 2014

In the newspaper club, I have been using my initiative, with my peers to develop a mission statement, a vision statement, a new slogan, and including a logo. I worked with Miguel in this:

http://www.warthogsworld.com/student-life/2014/02/27/big-steps-in-warthogs-world/

This is part of the IB Learner Outcomes: thinkers, as it shows me exploring new ideas.

Apart from that, I have been writing more articles.

I have also participated in interact, showing my commitment and dedication by participating in the fund raising for the Orphanages by getting MS orders for roses, or other valentines packages, and delivering the requested materials to them on Valentine days. I do feel as though this event needed more organization, as many of us were not organized (delivering wrong orders, or failing to give people their orders) At the end of the day we managed to fix this problems by attending to all the unattended orders. This is part of the IB learner outcome: Problem-solver.

For evidence, you can email my supervisor: mespenosa@his.ac.zw

I enjoyed this month as a whole!

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March Reflections 2014

This month I visited the Msasa orphanage for interact. It was very fun, as I worked with the little children in mathematics, literature and their school homework. I was engaged in teaching them what I know, and they learnt from me. I really enjoyed the visit, and I hope to be back soon.

In the newspaper club, I have been publishing more articles: http://www.warthogsworld.com/sports/2014/03/17/john-barnes-steps-in-his-soil/

This has shown mine consistency.

This month I have also visited Juru, on Saturday to help the Juru families with planting maize. It was very successful.

So far I am enjoying my CAS experience.

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Grade 11 Overall reflections

My first year was very successful; I managed to participate in Action, Creativity and Service, and I enjoyed each of my extracurricular activities. I have learnt a lot this year from my CAS experience, and I hope to learn more in my final year.

CAS has enabled me to multi-task: I can focus on my academics and do extra activities at the same time. I have been more transparent as I work with different people in different activities, as stated in my reflections, understanding different ideas and concepts, and accepting them. I cannot solely rely on what I think, it will mislead; one needs to have a bigger picture by putting people’s ideas together to see different perspectives. In the newspaper, as Editor, I have collected ideas on how to make the club grow and be more successful by listening and understanding to what my fellow colleagues think. I now believe that the best way to have good ideas is to have many ideas, and the best way to have many ideas is to engage with my fellow peers, creating a large social network.

My leadership skills have also increased, as my experience in the newspaper has endorsed my writing skills and leadership skills. As stated above, as an Editor in the newspaper I have learnt to be transparent by gathering different ideas.

I have enjoyed my participation in service and action, as I have been involved in multi-service activities. In this experience I have been able to achieve the IB learners profile requirements. For example, when challenges arise I have been able to solve problems by myself; his has enabled me to be a problem-solver and a thinker as I have stopped relying adults help, as used to before my CAS experience. I have really enjoyed working together with other people in my CAS activities.

Next academic year, I aim to be more engaged in with Creative, Action and Service activities.

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