Naisha Athavia
As a part of my CAS experience I participated in Fountainhead School’s Inter School event, Kalakriti called Kalakriti an anchor, hosting the Band Category, where different schools came and performed. I used my creativity to create an engaging yet formal speech which helped me get out of my comfort zone for a change and develop my confidence on stage. I creatively thought about interesting fillers between performances for the audience, such as riddles, jokes and general knowledge questions to keep my audience maintained and wrote the speech according to the flow. I also got a chance to manage the event as an anchor, as in my category, Band, keeping the event maintained and in order was an important task. Calling out the schools who were going to perform, helping them set up on stage and helping distribute the awards and of course, hosting were all things that I did as my CAS experience. This experience helped me cater to several learning outcomes, LO1, LO2,LO3,LO4 and LO5
LO1: Identify own strengths and areas for growth
My experience helped me cater to the first learning outcome since at first, I was hesitant to participate in an event which required me to speak on stage and host the event. I was not confident about myself and was not sure if I could confidently speak and manage the event. However, I was focused on improving myself and identifying my areas for growth and my strengths and weaknesses. Hence, once I participated in the event and started with my work, I found out that my strengths are actually creativity and writing. This way, I used my strengths to make the event engaging and fun for the audience and the judges. Moreover, while hosting the event, I also managed to find out my areas for growth, which were confidence and voice modulation. During the event, there were some moments where I fell short of confidence and got stage fear. I wasn’t able to properly deliver my speech at some points and concluded that I should work more on my confidence and improvising. However, in the end, I got out of my comfort zone and identified my strengths and areas for growth successfully due to this experience.
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
During the experience planning and tasks, I realized that I didn’t really have much time to work more on my anchoring speech due to school work and extra lectures. I wasn’t able to manage time effectively as there was little time left before the event day. I wanted to work on my school work as well as host the event successfully. Thus, with time management, I was able to complete both tasks successfully. I was committed to the Kalakriti anchoring and hence, first started to work on my speech and devote at least a full day for editing and final touches and getting it approved by my supervisors. With this dedication I was able to create an engaging speech for my audience. After that, I divided my time as per importance of the task including my school work. Once I was finished with my speech, I was able to prioritise my assignments, also giving to time to prepare for the event. After the event was over, I proactively reached out to my mentors for any doubts or sessions that I missed and covered up on my academics. The challenges I faced were clear, lack of time management and commitment. With little time left for the event, I developed my time management skills and was able to resolve these challenges and finalised my speech and covered my school work. Thus, the LO2 was catered.
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
My experience helped me cater to this learning outcome because during the process of preparing for the event, we had to plan and execute our experience of anchoring by ourselves. The importance was that we learned to create our speech and execute the entire event day. I demonstrated this by creating my speech according to the flow and planned out the event entertainment and management. I successfully planned this experience and initiated it well so that my audience was engaged and entertained while we conducted a wonderful day of music and band.
LO4: Show Commitment and perseverance to CAS experiences.
While planning this experience, I was committed to make the event worthwhile, and for that, I needed to be dedicated to it, devoting enough time and effort behind it and developing a stage personality. Even though there were many challenges in between such as lack of time, I managed to complete my creative speech for the day. This shows commitment and perseverance to my CAS experience, as I was determined to make it an enjoyable day and conduct it in an organised manner.
LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
The event was a pair work, even though we had to make the speeches. Each of us played an important role in organising and conducting the event with our creativity. Along with my partner, we collaboratively worked on the speech for the time frame and came up with each of our unique ideas. For instance, my partner came up with a formal greeting for the judges and schools, while I came up with entertaining yet thought provoking fillers between performances. We both collaboratively worked to ensure a smooth event flow, ensuring attendance of each school and distribution of certificates. It was our job to help students set up the stage and encourage the audience to involve in the fun. Despite our efforts, we still managed to deliver a well created speech and anchored until the day was over. Whenever one of us was tired or needed a transition break, the other one would fill in and visa versa. This shows collaborative work and demonstrates collaborative skills, clearly showing the benefits of working together.
Overall, we managed to make the day successful with our creative anchoring, self management skills, dedication and collaboration.
