Profile

fsk2009469-17092016024033My name is Pranjal Bhansali and I am 17 years old. I was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra on 5th March 1999 and was brought up in Surat, Gujarat. I joined Fountainhead School in Grade 5, and have been studying here ever since.

Basically, my talents and interests include- playing Football and Ultimate Frisbee, strumming Guitar, once in a while, debating and sometimes being a role model for a few and dancing. I mainly enjoy playing all kinds of sports and games. When I was young I used to skate at the state level, I have also been part of state level championships for Athletics (long jump and hurdles). Later, I gained interest in Football and have been playing the sport since grade 6. Apart from Football I enjoy adventurous activities and trying new sports; like rock climbing, rappelling, squash, billiards, table tennis etc.

I try to take interest in current affairs, but reading has always been a problem for me. In addition, to strike a balance in personal wellbeing, I make sure I do well at academics too, as it is equally important. When I was young I used to take Trinity exams (communication skills) and used to participate in oratory competitions along with spell bees. But as years passed and I got caught up with school and Football, I stopped participating in extracurricular activities.

Even though I am an extrovert, I can only stand a few people’s company. Many say that I am a strong girl and a role model for a lot of people. I strongly believe in self-growth and anything that hinders it affects me greatly. I try to take a clear stand in places where it is necessary and fight for what I believe is right. I am very short tempered and it does affect my relations with people, but I try to avoid instances like that.

There are a lot of things that I enjoy doing and the same amount of new things that I would want to learn. I did start playing drums a year back but stopped because I lost interest. Now, I think I am getting it back and I would like to play and learn drums again. Moreover, playing a grand piano has always fascinated me and my mother, apart from singing. If I get a chance and time to spare some time for music I would like to indulge in that.

Life, for me, is unpredictable, and I like it to be that way. I have always been a person who goes ‘with the flow’. I believe it is important for each one of us to think little about the past and future and live the present to the fullest. This has helped me in most places, but when I think about everything this way I end up procrastinating and not working at all. There are a few things that define me- smart, sporty, rage and lazy. As funny as it sounds, this is me.

I don’t feel for world issues too much unless I actually encounter them. When they strike me, it is not for long, I try to take a few steps towards it and then the fire is gone. But there is one thing I am very intolerant about, i.e. unfairness in the sports sector. I strongly believe in fairness, at least here. Everything that has been up in India and sports is not very pleasant to hear; but when the stories of athletes, participating in Rio Olympics came out, I was impressed by the efforts.

I would always want to be a person my mom asks me to be. A rational yet selfish being. Family is very important to me and friends too. I try to keep everybody happy and strive to fulfill everybody’s expectations. Like everything else, this is both good and bad. It affects me sometimes but other times it does bring the best in me.

CAS PLAN

Activities Components (C/A/S) Duration with start date and end date Learning Outcomes
Activity – Dance Creativity, Activity 4-Jul-2015 to 31-Mar-2016 LO1.Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
Tree plantation activity at vansda Activity, Service 19-Jul-2015 (4 hours) LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
LO6. Engagement with issues of global significance
LO7. Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Volunteering in Garba Fest Creativity, Service 7-Sep-2015 to 11-Oct-2015 LO1.Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
LO6. Engagement with issues of global significance
LO7. Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Football – Suboroto Cup State Championship Activity 8-Sept-2015 LO1.Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
LO7. Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Surat City Half Marathon Activity, Service 13-Sep-2015 (4 Hours) LO1.Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
LO6. Engagement with issues of global significance
LO7. Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
DP FEST ORGANISATION Creativity 21-Nov-2015 to 11-Dec-2015 LO1.Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO3. Initiate and plan a CAS experience
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
LO7. Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Organising Farewell for seniors Creativity 10-Feb-2016 to 8-April-2016 LO1.Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO3. Initiate and plan a CAS experience
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
LO7. Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Plantation Drive Activity, Service 3-Jul-2016 (3 Hours) LO1.Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
LO5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
LO6. Engagement with issues of global significance
Visiting and spending time with special kids Service 6-Aug-2016 (1 hour) LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
LO6. Engagement with issues of global significance
LO7. Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Activity – Dance

One thing that has always been a part of my life is dancing. Dancing brings me immense pleasure and is one of the activities I have always been complimented for. For my CAS I chose dance as a long term activity and formally learned new techniques and forms of dancing for two years. During this course of time I learned different forms of dance including hip-hop, Robotics, tutting, freestyle, whacking and salsa.

It was one of the most interesting things and well I was always the first one to reach the class. However we could only formally go to the class once a week which for me was very frustrating because it took too long to complete a song and practise is never enough. This really brought my morale down and sometimes we didn’t even receive this one class. However I always tried to put in extra effort therefore always practising when I was at home.

Out of all the dance forms, I was worst at robotics. I also tried to convince my teacher to remove this section however he made me understand that practise is important and if you try you could excel in this area as well. Our first official performance in front of our parents was on the song “sorry” by Justin Beiber. Many of us did mess up the performance a little but our teacher yet assured us he was proud of us as this was our first performance. I really enjoyed learning this dance form as I had been learning Indian and International folk dance for the past four years therefore performing on a new pop song was really exciting for me. There were some clashes between the students of my grade and the younger grade because of the differences in opinions and just the fact they were really different from us. Therefore it really took time for all of us to gel up and sometimes things are still awkward but adjusting and cooperation is what I have learned here.

Dance performance on song “Sorry by Justin Bieber”  (Me: front row wearing White Tshirt and red shirt)

Overall my experience for these two years has been amazing and my take away as a learner has been immense. I’ve learned new skills and forms making me a versatile dancer and I am also currently working on new performance encompassing all the new forms I’ve learned. I am really excited for the same and hopefully will demonstrate how much hard work has been put in these two years.

 

 

Organising Farewell for seniors

For my CAS project, I chose to organise the farewell of the “now” former grade 12 students of my school. I really wanted to take charge of this event because of my personal interest in event management which is the reason why I informed the authorities about my interest almost one year before the event had to be planned. When the time came, I came to know that I had to collaborate with my classmate Kripa which was actually good news because we are good friends and she in my opinion is very capable.

Before we started the planning, we knew there were two big challenges we would face.

  1. First being that the event demanded utmost creativity to make it as entertaining and memorable as possible for the students whilst using emotions to connect to each and every student in a personal way.
  2. and second that the finalised date of the event, was just before two days my final exams for grade eleven started. Meaning that in the following one month, I had to work for the event as well as coordinate studying for my examination.

Needless to say I took up the challenge to organise the event. We started planning for the event by first discussing what the theme of the event should be. So that the whole grade eleven felt that they were a part of the event, we decided to act democratically and always collaborated with everyone for the decision making process as everyone’s opinion mattered. The theme that was finalised was the red carpet where all the grade 12 students would be celebrities and would be presented with an award for one of their qualities. With that we came up with different ideas like a dance performance from grade 11 and teachers and making a video based on how their day goes around in school.

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Kripa and I came up with several other ideas that could be incorporated such as a slideshow displaying teachers comments. We wanted to make it as interesting and realistic as possible so we decided to print invites. Vanshika my classmate was well versed with editing so we took help from her to design the invitation.

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Trophies

Now the big work started. Because it wasn’t a small event and there was so much work to be done, the whole grade was divided into groups according to their preferences and where assigned departments such as the Decorations department, Photo booth, Game planners(who decided what games were going to be played), Technical department, dancers, filmmaking and acting. For the next couple days preparations were going on I had to be updated about everything. For that bit I really felt stressed and thought what have I stepped into because of the pressure of exams and managing 40 people wasn’t as easy. We also had to make sure we acted ethically from holding ourselves together to always being fair and doing the righteous thing. Kripa and I had to work really hard to get jobs done as beside managing these departments we had to design the trophy, Decide the menu, arrange transport and above all of that maintain a budget. We almost had at least one meeting every day for 10 days where we ordered all the material that would be needed, Approved of the trophies, decided the menu with the chef, finalised the location of the event, ordering the cake, designed the banner of the photo booth, arrange transport and decide the time of the event.

When it comes to organising an event, our school give us the full liberty to explore and really experience what event management in real feels like because we have the opportunity to work from the scratch and being a part of this event really gave me an unforgettable experience for my future.

 

THE DAY OF EVENT

Well the main day on which the event was taking place was full of crisis and mishaps. Kripa and I divided ourselves so I looked at the food, decorating and other stuff whereas she finished the movie that was supposed to be made. I wasn’t aware of the fact that the venue(Amphitheatre) of the event was already booked by junior grade teachers for practise. They did not want to negotiate and did not understand our situation which really got me frustrated. The event would begin at 3:30 PM and the hall wasn’t going to be free until noon. Which meant EVERYTHING including decorations, dance practise, on stage practise, sound check has to be done within three hours.

Finally it was noon and we were given the venue. Although there were mere conflicts between my classmates, but all was sorted later on. Everyone came together even the people making the movie video and teachers who were free to complete decorations and everything started going in the right direction FINALLY. Everything was in place, the cake and trophies arrived, the hall was decorated, dance practise was over, the food was in place and everybody rushed to get dressed. Grade 12 students arrived at the venue and everyone was looking as pretty as the venue. I was extremely happy and proud of myself at that point of time. The show started and we performed and it was a wrap.

The Hall

The Hall

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Seniors cutting their cake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farewell review from one of the senior

Farewell review from one of the senior

 

To sum up, I am very happy that I was a part of this project. It did hamper my examination but that I is what I have learned. How to work in pressure and how you’ve got to be prepared for crisis and most of all how to keep calm and think before you act. This project really gave me insight into how this profession works and how “People” management is the key to event management. In the end the appreciation from grade 12 students and all the teachers truly brought peace and made all of the hard work worth it.

Video of Kripa and I giving Acknowledgement speech (After 1:41)

CAS Profile

I am Varun Agarwal and I am 16 years old. I was born in Surat, Gujarat and have been here ever since. I prefer listening rather than talking and writing instead of presenting. It is clear from my preferences that I am an introvert.

Being an introvert, I have always disliked talking and meeting with new people. It has repeatedly held me back in life by the ways of stage-fright and limited interaction with people. These drawbacks have often caused me to wonder how my life would have been if I was an extrovert. Although, I do try to push myself to meet with new people and participate more in stage events, I am still a long way from being an extrovert.

I believe that people usually like what they are good at and are good at what they like. This is probably because of the appreciation you get when you are good at something which makes you start liking it and because if you are passionate about something you would work hard for it and eventually get good at it. Hence, my talents and interests are studying Business Management, playing Football and playing video games such as CS and Watch Dogs.

My outlook on life has always been to spend time on whatever you like as much as you want till the point that it does not harms you in the long run. For example, I should play as much Football as I want till the point that it does not invade my study time and harm me in the long run through academic failure.

There are a lot of things that I wish to learn and a lot of questions that I wish to be answered. At many times I have dreamed of having a machine which could answer all of my questions which are left unanswered such as “Is there extraterrestrial life?”, “Do humans have a purpose on Earth?”, “Would time travel ever be possible?” and many other such questions.

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CAS Essay

Over these two years, CAS has been a component in IB that has developed me as a person and has contributed a lot to my personal growth. The journey of CAS has been an amazing experience and has given me a bag full of achievements and memories. I have learned many new things and well, have become a pro at it 😛 and that would have been impossible to do without CAS.

At the start, it seemed like an additional burden with all my academic requirements. However, later on, it was one of the things that brought excitement in my life and allowed me to know who I am. Creativity, activity, and service, these components have allowed me to go out of my comfort zone and helped me identify my strengths and weakness, develop new skills, initiate events, work collaboratively with people, stay determined towards my commitment, see ethical aspects as well as do something for global significance. It has changed my life to an extent where I have started to do things that I thought I could never do in my entire life.

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The most memorable, exciting and I-could-never-do-this activity was my group project- Garba Fest. I can say that this was my first ever event where I showcased my leadership and delegation skills, which I never knew I had. The fact that I even tried to taken an initiative by myself (with a friend) is surprising, looking at my not-such-a-leader personality. This activity brought out my inner skills into execution and helped me know myself better.

Through various activities, some known and some unknown to my life, I have been a risk-taker, inquirer, principled and have tried to execute activities that morally correct. There was a time where I had to behave in the way that doesn’t harm the feelings of the underprivileged or orphaned children, which required patience and caring nature, to a great extent I had it.
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By taking part in the activities that I fear the most, I faced my biggest challenge. I had a commitment to myself that this year I would try to do things that I feared and I did. Activities, like anchoring at Kalakriti and conducting Hindi Assembly, have helped me overcome my Stage fear. This has taught me that only I can help myself to overcome my fears, which was a surprising thing to know. Throughout my life, I never aimed to try these activities just because of the lack of confidence in myself. However, now I realized that I can do whatever I want! And this was the major change in me.

Overall, CAS has been an amazing experience and I would like to take a part in these activities even after I have completed my CAS.

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Learning Camps

In today’s world education is indispensable and as students, it is our responsibility to spread the knowledge that we have gained from our helpful teachers. A group of students took an initiative to start a learning camps for free with the help of school’s faculty, I was influenced by this idea hence I decided to be a part of it.

We were divided into pairs of two, my partner and I were assigned to teach basic English to the children living in the village nearby.  My partner and I worked collaboratively and used our creativity to design new activities to teach English, we decided to split the participants into 2 groups which allowed us to provide more attention to the participants.

We expected the participants at least to be 10 years or above although on the first day we had many participants below 10 years and we decided to teach them too because it would be contradictory from our goal which is to helps these children to learn basic English and it would also be unethical if we only teach a set of students. The first English class that we conduct was moderately good because the participants were able to understand the activities and it was fun for them although this made me realized a strength that I possess which is to design/create activities that are helpful in learning something and I would like to focus more on this strength and develop it further.

There were no problems between my partner and me. At the end of the class we use to revise what we have taught and most of the times, the participants would have understood what we have taught hence I was able to identify two of my own strengths: I am good at working with a partner or a team and I can do a moderate job when it comes to teaching English.

The first challenge that I faced was the communication barrier between participants and me, all the participants use to speak the regional language ‘Gujarati’ where else my Gujarati is not very good. The second challenge my partner and I faced was managing the participants because the number of participants was increasing after every class and the third challenge that I faced was managing my time table. I tried my best to overcome the first challenge with the help of my partner although it was hard but, due to my commitment, perseverance and proper collaboration from my partner the challenge was eliminated. We were able to overcome the second challenge by maintaining an online record of the participants although the hardest challenge was maintaining my timetable because the learning camps were scheduled after our schools hours were over and I use to reach home 2-3 hours later than the normal time hence my timetable was disturbed which resulted in me getting lesser sleep, although with my commitment and perseverance I was able to manage my time table and overcome this challenge by completing my sleep on the weekends. Due to this challenges I was able to develop new strengths/skills like speaking moderately good Gujarati and properly maintaining my time table.

We tried our best to treat each and every participant equally and we were unbiased when we were teaching them because we decided to achieve our goal ethically. We also decided to focus and engage with issues of global significance like global warming and poverty, we collaboratively planned a creative activity which helped us to spread the information to the participants about the possible causes of global warming like carbon emission and possible cause of poverty like corruption and unequal distribution of income. Overall, it was a good experience which allowed me to learn new things.

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Essay

CAS was the most fun core component out of the three. The whole idea and aim of this subject were very well inculcated in us by our teachers. Creativity, Action, and Service was done for 18 long months to help others and rejuvenate ourselves.

The first activity that comes to my mind when I think about this experience is when I organised the SUO’15. It was a very difficult task, but enjoyable at the same time. The sport is very close to my heart and I showed my passion towards it by working for it even though I had broken my leg. As it was a big tournament/event, it was tough to handle so many tasks and people at once. There were a lot of communication problems, sponsorship rejections, stay problems etc. but we tried our best to resolve it and give everybody a memorable experience.

There is a list of things that I have learned from CAS, most importantly, time management. Every activity taught me how important keeping things under deadline was and the ill effects of not doing so. Every activity was a learning experience and a whole new insight into myself. The Service activities made me more open-minded, reflective, caring and tolerant to the world around. In addition, I also realised how important being a good communicator and a well-balanced student was. Balancing school work, along with other duties and also, handling the actual activity in hand.

The 2 most major highlights of this experience would be Math Science Trivia and GSES’15. These two academic related activities were tremendously beneficial and fun. Both of them were group activities and we strived to work for the betterment of the receiver. There were a few difficulties we faced, like any other activity, but at the end, they were resolved. During the Trivia, we were nearing our exams and it was difficult for us to manage everything at once; but our supervisors were very supportive and took over for a while. Furthermore, GSES was a summit where teens were asked to get into groups and make a social enterprise. At the beginning of planning it was a tough job, but as we dug deeper into the enterprise, we got closer to our final goal.

The learning outcomes were really helpful in understanding the purpose and end goal of the experience and each activity. However, there were a few LOs that were difficult to achieve. For example- “Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance”; most of the activities that I engaged myself into were either about working collaboratively or developing areas for growth. Activities that come under Service were only ticking LO6 off and I didn’t really indulge myself in Service related activities too much. But later, when I realised that it is important, I met all the requirements by volunteering for activities that would make me more knowledgeable about the world around.

It is said that CAS is the heart of IBDP and the most important aspect of “overall growth”. Therefore, I would like this experience to be taken forward. Although it has its own difficulties, the final product, and the experience, itself, is wholesome and benefiting. I am glad to have such a subject in my high school years, that made me learn and grow.

 

CAS Plan-Pranjal Bhansali

Activities Components (C/A/S) Start Dates (mm/dd/yyyy) End Dates (mm/dd/yyyy) Learning Outcomes
Football- Subroto Cup 2015 Activity 9/7/2015 9/9/2015 L1, L2, L5
Health Posters for School Creativity, Service 8/10/2015 8/10/2015 L2, L6, L7
Making a Foosball Table Creativity, Activity 1/30/2016 2/6/2016 L2, L3, L4, L5, L7
Jersey Designing Creativity 10/30/2015 11/17/2015 L2, L3, L4, L5, L7
Surat City Half Marathon- Pit Stops Activity, Service 9/13/2015 9/13/2015 L2, L4, L5, L6, L7
Math Science Trivia Creativity, Activity 10/3/2015 10/3/2015 L1, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7
Photography on Teacher’s Day Celebration Creativity, Activity 9/4/2015 9/4/2015 L1, L4, L5, L7
Global Social Entrepreneurship Summit Creativity, Activity, Service 2/25/2016 2/27/2016 L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7
Street Play- Awareness about Organ Donation at U-Turn Creativity, Service 8/7/2016 8/7/2016 L1, L2, L3, L5, L6, L7
Surat Ultimate Open 2015 (Project) Creativity, Activity, Service 7/15/2015 12/6/2015 L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7

Kabaddi Tournament – Cas Project

In the month of August and September, I planned and executed my project – Kabaddi Tournament. Kabaddi is a traditional sport of India and we invited the students of our school to participate in this tournament with the aim to make this sport more popular and to also encourage unity among the different grades of our school. I organized this tournament with 2 of my friends – Anay and Nikunj. All three of us were already very interested in Kabaddi and but could not play it considering this sport was not popular and therefore we did not had players to play with. To solve the problem we decided to conduct a Kabaddi Tournament in our school. Another important aim behind this project was to be able to raise funds for providing stationary for the underprivileged students in our locality. This was something that all three of us felt very strong about.

As this sport was new for most of the students of our school, we knew that we would have to put extra efforts in marketing of our tournament. This is why we used multiple methods of marketing including word of mouth, posters and online forms. The main challenge in marketing that we faced was creating the poster and making announcements in classes. As none of us had ever created posters before, creating the poster proved to be challenging for us especially because we had different opinions on every part of the poster such as layout and colors. However, we then decided to draft three posters and then take our friend’s help to finalize one. This part of the marketing helped me learn designing posters which after the event I realized was a very important skill as it really helped us get more participants. Another challenge that we faced was lack of confidence while going to classes and making announcements about our tournament. This was because we were not very good at public speaking. We were very nervous before making the announcements, however after we made announcements in a few classes I got pretty confident and was then able to make better and more convincing announcements in classes. Therefore, it helped me increase my confidence as well. Sending online forms to students of all grades not only helped us promote our tournament but also allowed us to make a list of all willing participants. This was the easiest marketing strategy.

Another challenge that we faced during the tournament was that our theory of knowledge presentation’ consultations timings were clashing with out tournament timings. Therefore, during particular matches not all of the three of us were able to be present. However, because we were working collaboratively we were still able to continue with the tournament as the remaining two of us would monitor the matches. Working collaboratively also helped us reduce our workload as all of the tasks were divided among the three. This resulted in a more smooth and efficient functioning of the event.

Through this activity we were able to move a step towards issues of global significance such as empowering girls to play sports and helping in providing education for the underprivileged. For the teams in our tournament we hadkept it mandatory for the captains to choose at least 2 girls in their team of 5 to encourage girls to participate in the tournament. We even had made special announcements in classes to motivate girls to register for the tournament. I was very happy from the result of this when there were 2-3 girls in each team.

We had kept an entry fees of Rs. 100 per player in the tournament and after the end of the tournament we were able to generate a moderate amount of profit. From this profit, we bought stationery like notebooks and pens for the underprivileged students to encourage them to educate themselves and better their lives.

There was an ethical implication in our event as well for us to be completely dedicated to our aims and reasons for starting this activity in the first place and therefore not keeping any profit for ourselves. I felt really proud of myself and my friends after making a difference in the lives of those less privileged than us.

Appendix

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