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12
ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE
Creativity, Action, Service
By Anna Fielding, CAS Coordinator
If you were given £50 and told you had a
month to change the world what would
you do?
• Make tie-dye painting shirts for children
attending an art therapy centre (below)?
• Run a football tournament for Shells?
• Make Sunday dinner and take it to
homeless people?
• Raise awareness of the amount of
sugar in every day drinks?
• Investigate the level of food wastage
in School (right)?
• Create an online social media campaign
to encourage mental health awareness?
Lower Sixth IB pupils decided to launch all
these projects last month. Many might have
found the prospect of being given free rein to
carry out any Service project with very little
guidance quite daunting. However in early
March teachers were amazed at what had
been achieved in only four weeks. Pupils’ work
varied from giving presentations in assembly
to mass producing tie-dye shirts, refereeing
an excited group of Shells to learning how to
cook 25 hot meals.
Whether they raised money or awareness
all pupils excelled at overcoming the
challenges they faced, setting themselves
goals, meeting tough deadlines and working
successfully in a group; all skills that underpin
the IB course. Pupils commented that they
enjoyed ‘being responsible - having the
freedom to do it ourselves’.
The month-long Service project forms
The food waste
team from left to
right, Afiq Rozhan
(
Papplewick
),
Aaron Gruen
(
Munich International
),
Nathalie Roschmann
(
Prior’s Field
),
Gleb Izmaylov
(
Bishopstrow
),
Maximilian Heil
(
St Alban’s College,
South Africa
) and
Katie MacCrindle
(
Swanbourne House
).
just one part of CAS, a core element of the
IB that encourages pupils to think outside
the classroom and beyond the textbook.
Since starting the Diploma in September the
Lower Sixth have completed over 12,000
hours of CAS, with nearly 3,000 of those
being Service. They might not have changed
the world in a month, but they’ve certainly
had an impact.
Anamika Pillai (
Sir James Henderson British School
)