1 Dec 2015

CAS Service Placements Jan-March

Dear Parents and Year 12 students,

As part of their IB Diploma CAS programme 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, students will undertake a seven week placement between January and March. The placements will range from volunteering in local kindergartens, primary schools, a disabled youth rehabilitation centre, elderly community centres and other local NGOs. These placements will 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 Roseman Tsim, our Social Worker as well as planning time for their placement activities. However, 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 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 and we require the full attendance of our students.

Tuesdays 19^th, 26^th January

Tuesdays 2^nd, 23^rd February

Tuesdays 1^st, 8^th, 15^th March

The students will not be supervised by a Sha Tin College teacher at all times during the placements but their CAS Advisor teacher will be making regular site visits over the course of the 7 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 overensra1@stconline.edu.hk or Mr Atkinson at atkinsonr2@stconline.edu.hk if you require further information regarding the volunteer placements.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Overens, CAS Coordinator Richard Atkinson, Assistant CAS Coordinator

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