24 Nov 2017

CAS Service Placements Jan-March 2018  

Dear Parents and Year 12 IBDP students,

As part of their IB Diploma CAS programme, Year 12 students have a CAS period in their weekly timetable. This has allowed for focused time between the students and a team of CAS Advisors. This has been used for students to work on their required CAS Portfolio (in the Gateway system) as well as for discussing and monitoring student CAS progress, listening to guest speakers and also completing the compulsory CAS interviews.
As part of the programme next term, IBDP students will undertake a six week placement between January and March. Students in the LSC need not take part in these placements since it is not a formal requirement for their program. The placements will range from volunteering in local kindergartens, primary schools, elderly community centres and other local NGOs. These placements will assist students in achieving the CAS IBDP learning outcomes and provide students with the experience of engaging in real local and global issues, the opportunity to foster links and have an understanding of the needs within the local community.
Over several CAS lessons, we will help prepare students and they will have input from their CAS Advisors as well as planning time for their placement activities. The students will be exposed to people from varied backgrounds and they will certainly encounter situations outside of their comfort zone.  Some examples could include devising appropriate games for elderly clients at a community centre, or teaching English to youths with disabilities or to young children at local kindergartens. I hope that these service placements will offer students an opportunity to make a positive impact on the local community.
Placements will take place once a week and students will depart from school at the start of their CAS period, which is period 5 on Tuesdays, to travel to their respective placements. Transport will be provided to Sha Tin/Tai Wai/Kowloon Tong MTR but students will then need to make their own way to the placements from there. Please note that the placements will end between 4.30-5.30pm and students will need to make their own transport arrangements home from the placement location. We would also ask that students avoid making any other arrangements during this sequence of Tuesdays. They will have plenty of notice about these dates and we have made a commitment to local organisations, so we require the full attendance of our students.
Tuesdays 16th, 23rd, 30th January
Tuesdays 6th, 13th   & 20th March
The students will not be supervised by a Sha Tin College teacher at all times during the placements but their CAS Advisor will be making regular site visits over the course of the 6 sessions. There will be supervising adults from the organisation on site at all times and the students will always be with their peers and never on their own.
This letter is to make you aware of the transport and supervision arrangements from a safety point of view before your child participates in these placements.
Please do not hesitate to contact me (how1@stconline.edu.hk) if you require further information regarding the volunteer placements.
Yours faithfully,
Wendy Ho
CAS Coordinator