- The 7 CAS Learning Outcomes (Official Wording)
- Have the CAS Learning Outcomes Changed for 2027, 2028 or 2029?
- How the Learning Outcomes Work
- How to Evidence Each Outcome: Examples
- How to Make the Evidence Convincing
- Track Your Outcomes Across the Whole Portfolio
- How the Three CAS Interviews Use the Learning Outcomes
- CAS Learning Outcomes vs the IB Learner Profile
- Common CAS Learning Outcome Mistakes
Quick Answer
The seven CAS learning outcomes are: identify your own strengths and develop areas for growth; show you have undertaken challenges and developed new skills; show how to initiate and plan a CAS experience; show commitment and perseverance; demonstrate collaboration skills and their benefits; engage with issues of global significance; and recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions. You must evidence each at least once.
What You'll Learn
- There are seven CAS learning outcomes, and you must evidence each one at least once across your CAS programme.
- Not every experience needs to meet an outcome, and some outcomes will appear many times.
- Your coordinator agrees with you what evidence is enough. Reflections are the most common evidence.
- The third CAS interview is where you explain how you achieved each outcome.
- The outcomes are the same for the classes of 2027, 2028 and 2029.
The 7 CAS Learning Outcomes (Official Wording)
These are the seven learning outcomes from the IB's CAS guide, with a short explanation of what each one asks you to show. Many schools and platforms shorten them to LO1 to LO7.
- 1LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth. You see yourself as someone with a range of abilities, some more developed than others, and you work on the weaker ones.
- 2LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process. The challenge can be something unfamiliar or an extension of something you already do.
- 3LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience. You can explain the steps from an idea to a plan you carried out, alone or with others.
- 4LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences. You show regular involvement and active engagement over time.
- 5LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively. You can show, and critically discuss, both the benefits and the difficulties of working with others.
- 6LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance. You understand a global issue, make responsible decisions and take appropriate action locally, nationally or internationally.
- 7LO7: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions. You show awareness of the consequences of your choices when planning and carrying out CAS.
Have the CAS Learning Outcomes Changed for 2027, 2028 or 2029?
No. The seven outcomes above come from the CAS guide first used for students graduating in 2017, and they apply unchanged to everyone graduating in 2027, 2028 and 2029. In March 2025 the IB said a new CAS curriculum has been delayed until 2030, and its CAS page, updated in February 2026, still refers to the seven learning outcomes. If a website gives a different number or different wording, it is either out of date or showing a school's own simplified version.
Pro Tip
Some school handbooks rewrite the outcomes in student-friendly language. That is fine for understanding them, but your coordinator signs off CAS against the official seven.
How the Learning Outcomes Work
Completing CAS is based on achieving the seven learning outcomes over a CAS programme of at least 18 months. Some outcomes will be achieved many times and others less often, and not every CAS experience leads to an outcome. What matters is that your portfolio shows evidence of each outcome at least once. Your CAS coordinator must agree with you what evidence is needed for each one, and the guide notes that this evidence is most commonly found in your reflections. The guide also gives suggested descriptors for each outcome, but they are suggestions, not a checklist: you do not have to meet every descriptor, and the decision is made by your coordinator with you.
Pro Tip
Instead of asking 'How do I mention the outcome?', ask 'What in this experience actually proves the outcome?'
How to Evidence Each Outcome: Examples
These examples are illustrative. They show the kind of evidence that makes each outcome believable to a coordinator.
- LO1, strengths and growth: a short self-assessment at the start of CAS, then a later reflection on how you worked on a weakness. For example, a student who avoids speaking up volunteers to announce events at sports day and reflects on how it went.
- LO2, challenge and new skills: before-and-after evidence of a skill. For example, video of your first and tenth climbing session, or drafts of a song showing how it developed.
- LO3, initiate and plan: a plan you wrote, with goals, roles, a timeline and a risk assessment, plus notes on how you changed it. Starting a club or leading part of your CAS project works well.
- LO4, commitment and perseverance: a record of regular involvement over months, and a reflection on a point where you wanted to stop but kept going.
- LO5, collaboration: evidence of shared roles, and a reflection that discusses what was difficult about working together, not only what went well.
- LO6, global significance: action on a local issue with a clear global link. For example, a food waste campaign at school, backed by research into why food waste matters beyond your town.
- LO7, ethics: a reflection on a decision with consequences for other people. For example, deciding whether to post photos from a service session with children, and checking the partner organisation's consent rules first.
How to Make the Evidence Convincing
Naming a learning outcome is not enough. You need evidence that makes the claim believable. Good CAS documentation shows moments, decisions, difficulties and progress that point naturally towards the outcome.
- Use examples of specific tasks you planned or led
- Show how you responded to setbacks or uncertainty
- Document long-term participation rather than isolated appearances
- Include collaboration evidence such as shared roles or group outcomes
- Reflect on ethical choices or wider significance when they are genuinely relevant
- Agree the type of evidence with your coordinator early, so there are no surprises at your final interview
Watch Out
Avoid copying the wording of the learning outcomes into reflections without real explanation. Formulaic writing is easy to spot and weak as evidence.
Track Your Outcomes Across the Whole Portfolio
No single activity needs to prove everything. A balanced CAS portfolio combines several experiences that together cover all seven outcomes. A simple tracker helps: list the seven outcomes and, beside each one, the experiences and reflections that evidence it. When you review it regularly, you can see which outcomes are well evidenced and which need more deliberate attention.
- 1Set up the tracker at the start of CAS.
- 2Add an entry each time a reflection genuinely shows an outcome.
- 3Review the tracker every few months and before each CAS interview.
- 4Add or adapt experiences where an outcome has no evidence yet.
- 5Keep examples varied so the portfolio feels authentic rather than repetitive.
How the Three CAS Interviews Use the Learning Outcomes
The CAS guide requires at least three formal, documented interviews with your CAS coordinator or adviser. Each one looks at the learning outcomes in a different way.
- 1First interview, at the start of the Diploma Programme: your coordinator explains the CAS requirements and the learning outcomes, and discusses how you might achieve them.
- 2Second interview, normally towards the end of the first year: a progress check, using your portfolio, on your range of experiences and the outcomes you have achieved so far. You may have completed or be planning your CAS project by then.
- 3Third interview, near the end of the programme: a summative discussion in which you explain how you achieved the learning outcomes and reflect on your overall growth.
Pro Tip
Bring your tracker to the second interview. Any outcome with no evidence yet is the one to plan for in your second year.
CAS Learning Outcomes vs the IB Learner Profile
People sometimes search for 'IB learning outcomes' when they mean the IB learner profile. They are different things. The CAS learning outcomes are the seven things you must show to complete CAS. The learner profile is a set of ten attributes the IB hopes all its students develop: inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced and reflective. The two are connected. One of the four tests for a CAS experience is that it gives you opportunities to develop learner profile attributes, and the guide notes that your CAS portfolio can show how you have developed them. Each DP subject also has its own assessment objectives, which are separate again.
Common CAS Learning Outcome Mistakes
These mistakes often make CAS portfolios look weaker than the experiences behind them.
- Trying to force every outcome into every experience
- Listing outcomes without concrete supporting evidence
- Confusing attendance with perseverance or growth
- Ignoring planning and initiative in experiences you helped shape
- Treating LO6 as impossible because your CAS is local
- Leaving outcome mapping until the final interview