CAS Creativity

History continues to be one of my favourite school activities. The group is super fun as they all enjoy the subject. This year we have made presentations on historical events which is always a good thing for me to do as being forced to present is often a little out of my comfort zone but with this group both those I am presenting with and it is not too difficult and I can see my self becoming more confident when I compare the ones this year to ones from grade 9. This year we also gathered historical sources that would give other students context to the Ukraine-Russia crisis. These were then shared with all of the high school. I think this was one of the most important things for us to do as keeping people informed and helping them understand is extremely important and history is a great tool for that. Finding historical maps on how the border has changed over the years to understand why the war started, and the ethics of the conflict in order to educate others was a really great experience, especially seeing it shared with so many people around the school. At the moment we are now starting a little book club within the activity where we read a text during the week and then discuss it in class. This is super interesting as reading sources is not only applicable to the subject as I have a source paper in the IB  but reading a variety of different perspectives on different events with many being from textbooks or other academic writings is just a really interesting way to learn about events or discover arguments on the significance of history or the differences between different ideologies.

I think this activity is extremely valuable not only due to the importance of history but due to the research skills of finding articles, analysing readings and practising presenting. This as well as a really great atmosphere in the activity work to form really positive experiences.

I have been playing for about 8-9 years now and am currently working towards my grade 8 exam (the last student grade). As with every grade, I am still constantly improving as I learn my pieces. This form of creativity is very important to me as it is something I have been doing for a very long time therefore I really want to do well in this final grade. Over the next few months, I will be finishing up my pieces as I prepare for the online exam since in-person ones have not returned since the beginning of the pandemic. I am a little worried about this style of the exam as it is a recording so there may be higher pressure since the exam board is aware that the recording can be re-done many times and therefore the exam submitted should be the very best many attempts.  I know that in past exams my area for improvement was some rhythm aspects of my pieces while scales come easily to me so I will be prioritising my pieces especially since I always feel like that is the most important part of each grade. I look forward to continuing to improve at the piano and hope to soon achieve this next level.

I have been doing history society since Grade 9 and every year in it we get the opportunities to learn about new historical events that are not covered in class. We also analyse significance, create posters to educate the school and deepen our knowledge of history. The activity also allows us to play certain history games such as Diplomacy where you work on teamwork, strategising and meeting new people. This activity is one of my favourites and I really enjoy researching these new events for example one of my first presentations for this activity was on the Australian Emu war. I look forward to growing in this activity, learning new things and increasing my ability to analyse history to help me in the subject during the IB as I am sure a higher level of these skills will be necessary over the next 2 years.