Something I found difficult in the training sessions was that it was hard to stay energetic and focused in training as some days I was tired from school and wanted to rest. Collaborating with my friends in badminton helped me a lot in this as talking with them helped me stay positive and distract me from homework and stress. (LO2, challenges) (LO4, commitment) (LO5, collaboration)

One of the ways I used my management skills in badminton was planning the warmups. I found that in the beginning of when I first joined badminton, I struggled to keep with the coach’s warmup and decided with my friend to do a few warmups together so that I could handle the groups practice better. We stretched our body first and then did some simple badminton exercises to warm up our body. (LO3, planning)

I have been playing badminton since I was small but only recently joined the badminton team this year. Something I realised during training is that I am slow on my feet and lack feet body coordination. This is because when I was small I trained more in swimming and thus my coordination and reaction time is slower on land. In pre-season training I found the footwork challenging and practiced with my friend a lot so I could improve. This helped me a lot since I was more comfortable with the steps and improved more in comparison to the first session. (LO1, strengths and weaknesses), (LO2, challenges)

So far in pottery all the sessions have been really enjoyable for me and I really like the activity as it helps me to unwind after school and just relax. A challenge that I’ve faced in pottery is remembering all the techniques I learnt in middle school and think of something creative to make. As I struggled with finding something to create I decided to ask my close friends and family around me to see if they needed anything so that I would not be wasting clay and being sustainable. (LO2, challenges)

(LO5, collaboration)

Reflecting on my progress throughout the pottery sessions, I noticed that towards the end I found it extremely relaxing to just sit down, listen to music and create something. It was a really good method of relieving the stress and after talking with the supervisor, he told me about therapeutic art which was really interesting to me. In therapeutic art, it affects a person’s health and well-being and was a way for people to deal with their own trauma. After hearing this, I think I might join another art activity to learn more about this issue. (LO6, global issue)

The service I chose for CAS is Interactive Storytelling with PPIS. The reason why I chose PPIS is because it is the service I have done in Grade 9 and 10 so it is familiar to me. Something I am looking forward to in PPIS is interacting with the little kids and seeing in the future how we have helped them to gain more confidence and teach them about different cultures as many of them aren’t that confident and grow up in the same environment. For my service reflections I will mostly try and update my reflections on Thursday after the service session. (LO3, planning)

In the first week of service all we did is icebreakers and introduce ourselves to each other. We also discussed the challenges we would be facing as because of the pandemic we would not be allowed to meet the children this year and how we could overcome that. I think this would especially be more challenging to us as it will be harder to engage with the children therefore we would need to effectively plan our sessions and online meets as well as come up with different ideas to make it fun and interesting. (LO2, challenges)