One of the questions we get most often from IB Diploma coordinators is some version of: "How should we set up CAS in ManageBac+?" The honest answer is that it depends - and ManageBac+ is designed to support several different management approaches.

CAS coordination varies significantly across schools. Some give students complete autonomy over their experiences. Others assign all CAS activities centrally. Most sit somewhere in between. The four models below map to these different philosophies, and choosing the right one before your cohort starts their Diploma programme will save your coordinators a significant amount of administrative work later on.

Support desk insight: The most common CAS setup problem is not choosing the wrong model - it is not choosing a model at all, and ending up with some students self-managing, some being managed by advisors, and no consistent process across the cohort. Decide on your approach before students start adding experiences and communicate it clearly. Retrofitting a model mid-cycle is genuinely painful.

Choosing Your Model: A Quick Decision Guide

Model 1: Managed by the Student

Students add their own CAS experiences independently via their CAS worksheet. They fill in the experience details and submit - the advisor receives an email notification and can approve or flag the experience.

How it works: Students navigate to their CAS worksheet and use the Add CAS Experience option to create and submit each experience individually. Advisors review the experience in ManageBac+ and mark it as Approved once it meets CAS requirements.

What coordinators need to prepare:

• Clear guidance to students on what constitutes a valid CAS experience and how to describe it accurately
• An agreed approval turnaround time so students know how long to expect before hearing back
• A communication process for experiences that need revision before approval

Best for: Schools where students are doing largely self-directed, independent CAS experiences and the school values student ownership of the process as part of the IB philosophy.

Model 2: Managed by Student and Advisor

Advisors create CAS experience groups in ManageBac+ and add students to them. Students can then select from these pre-created groups when adding an experience to their worksheet, which auto-fills much of the required information. Students can still add their own independent experiences alongside these.

How it works: Advisors create experience groups via the Groups tab and add relevant students as members. When students add an experience from their worksheet, they can link it to an existing group - reducing the amount of detail they need to enter manually. Reflections and learning outcomes remain the student's responsibility.

What coordinators need to prepare:

• A list of school-led CAS experiences or programmes to be created as groups before the academic year begins
• Clear communication to students explaining which experiences are available as groups and which they will add independently

Best for: Schools running a combination of organised school activities (sports programmes, community service initiatives, arts performances) and student-led individual projects.

Model 3: Managed by the Advisor

Advisors create experience groups, add students, and mark experiences as Approved - so that approved experiences appear directly on each student's CAS worksheet without the student needing to add anything. Students only need to add their reflections.

How it works: The advisor creates the group, adds students via the Members tab, and marks all experiences as Approved from within the group. Those experiences then appear pre-approved on every student's worksheet. If your school has enabled the Lock Approved CAS Activities setting under Security and Permissions, students will not be able to edit the experience details further - only add their reflections.

What coordinators need to prepare:

• All planned CAS experiences set up as groups before the cohort begins their Diploma programme
• A review process for monitoring reflections and learning outcomes across the cohort - this can be managed via the group's Reflections and Reviews tabs, which allow advisors to see all student reflections in one view and mark learning outcomes as met in bulk

Best for: Schools where CAS is primarily structured and school-prescribed, and where the coordinator wants to ensure consistent, compliant experiences across the whole cohort from the outset.

Model 4: Bulk Pre-Filled Experiences

The most guided approach. Coordinators use the Bulk Create Experience function to populate fully pre-filled experiences directly onto selected students' worksheets. Every field is completed by the coordinator - students arrive at their worksheet to find their experiences already in place and only need to add reflections.

How it works: Navigate to Year Group, then CAS, then use the Bulk Create Experience option on the right-hand side. Complete all experience fields and select the students the experience applies to. On submission, the experience appears pre-filled on each selected student's worksheet.

A practical tip from the support desk: This model is also particularly effective as an onboarding tool at the start of the Diploma programme. Creating a simple introductory CAS experience and bulk-adding it to all students' worksheets gives every student a concrete starting point and demystifies the process before they begin adding their own experiences.

Best for: Schools running uniform CAS experiences across the whole cohort, or for any school wanting to give students a structured, guided start to their CAS journey.

Managing CAS Groups: What Coordinators Should Know

For Models 2 and 3, advisors can manage student CAS experiences entirely through the Groups tab rather than navigating through the Year Group Manager - which is significantly faster when managing a large cohort.

Two group views worth knowing:

• Reflections tab - shows how many reflections each student has added to the group experience; click a student's name to read their reflections in detail
• Reviews page - allows advisors to leave supervisor comments, mark applicable learning outcomes as met, and mark experiences as completed for multiple students simultaneously; always save changes at the bottom of the page

If your school has enabled the Lock Approved CAS Activities setting, be aware that this applies across all models - once an experience is marked as approved, students cannot edit the experience fields. Confirm whether this setting is appropriate for your school's approach before the cohort begins adding experiences.

In Summary

• Choose your CAS management model before students start adding experiences - retrofitting a model mid-cycle is significantly harder than setting it up correctly from the start.
• Model 1 suits independent, student-led CAS; Model 2 suits a mixed approach; Model 3 and 4 suit schools with structured, prescribed CAS programmes.
• Models 2 and 3 can be managed efficiently through the Groups tab using the Reflections and Reviews pages for bulk oversight.
• Consider using Model 4's Bulk Create Experience function as an onboarding tool at the start of the Diploma programme, regardless of which ongoing model you choose.

If you are unsure which model fits your school's approach, the ManageBac+ Support Team is happy to talk through your CAS programme structure and recommend a setup. Review more here.