Basketball being my favourite sport since the day I selected it as my Personal Sport (PS). My experience and dedication to the sport helped me be qualified enough to be a part of our school team and have this great experience.

There were a lot of inter school basketball competitions scheduled in the year 2017 and I being a student of Fountainhead school and a part of its basketball team was fortunate enough to attend these inter school competitions. The competitions I participated in were Khel Mahakumbh, Xavier’s cup, Fountainhead cup, a competition that took place at Tapti valley International school and an inter school competition at Alchemy school. Some of these competitions were held in our school and some outside the school.

The learning Outcomes I had during the activity are: 

Learning Outcome 1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

I have been playing basketball since I was in grade 9 and today basketball has became an integral part of my life. In my first year of playing basketball I used to play as 0 (Power Forward) where I was required to play offensively near the ring area and drive in to attempt a lay up and to collect all the possible rebounds but later I was asked to switch my position by my couch and play as 45 (Small Forward), with this I had to change my playing style entirely as it required a lot of mid range shooting. After some difficulties I was able to play at this position and in fact I came to know that I play better here and this change became my strength. I believe the biggest strength I have in playing basketball is the dedication I show towards the sport and my will to adjust to changes. While playing this position I was able to make sufficient space from the defender to perform a shoot but most of my shoots didn’t count as they weren’t accurate. At first it demotivated me a lot but it also gave me a scope of improvement. I planned to attend morning camps so that i could give time to my shooting and enhance my shooting skills.

Learning Outcome 2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken developing new skills

Basketball is a very competitive sport. There are a lot of teams we need to face before holding the trophy and for that we need to create many different strategies and follow them in the game. Every game that we were defeated in, left us with motivation to work harder so that we can clear all the loopholes and perform better next time. In the year 2017 we came across many teams and some of them were very competitive and some were even better than us apparently best in the city, even after all this hard work we lost our matches to these teams but giving up was not an option instead we worked on our skill set to make our team fit for next match and to do that we practised new and different skills, introducing us to a professional game experience. The last match we played as a team was the Xavier’s cup. We ranked first in the tournament with an amazing score of 18-5, we have lost twice to the same team in the past and we were very familiar with the strategies they use, our experience and hard work paid off and helped us win the cup. It is important to undertake challenges in our life so that we develop new skills and grow as a person.

Learning Outcome 4 – Commitment to and perseverance

As I have talked about it earlier, I was asked to change my position where a lot of shooting was required which I failed in doing accurately. As a solution I decided to register my name for morning camps in school so that I could spend more time shooting and improving my game. It was really difficult to wake up 2 hours early than your normal wake up time at first but after forcing myself for about a week or so it changed into my habit and I didn’t have to force myself out of bed anymore. The goal of improving my game was so clear in my mind that nothing could stop me. Shooting 40 to 50 shoots in an hour was not easy and it started to bore me after some days but I knew that this is the only thing that can improve my shooting skills and hence i carried on with this activity for one and a half month. I was able to see some changes in myself and was also appreciated by my coach and other teammates. When it was about competing some other team we never forget to learn from their actions and skills and implement them in our game also whenever possible. We were required to adapt to different game strategies to win against some specific teams and in order to do that we focused more on practising rather than playing matches in our PS.

Learning Outcome 5 – Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively

I get myself open to working in a group since I have been playing this game for quite a while. I didn’t come across to any problem from my team in any of our matches. Our group was exceptionally cooperative. A team can never win until everyone puts in enough effort and a combination of efforts result in the success of a team. If everybody does their activity well, at that point it increments what the group can accomplish. Everyone has their own unique role, yet every individuals part should be perceived and appreciated so that it motivates him or her to keep up the hard work. It has happened a lot of time that our team captain who plays at a different position, helps and advises our teammates including me when we do something wrong, we never hesitate before considering areas of improvement and this attitude helped us to be what we are today as a team. Every player must be devoted to the entire team and act altruistically to perform the best.

Some evidences of our Achievements:

This was a great CAS experience to be considered as it left me with a lot to learn and explore my own self.