Home About Us Download
Page		 Registration
Form		 Programmes &
Services		 Scientific Backing &
Advisory Council		 Sponsorship &
Funding		 Resources

Kids' Camps and After Care Support

Our first programme, specifically designed to help children considered unfit, sedentary or obese, uses a range of scientifically proven techniques to help children successfully engage in physical activity. Our Active Lifestyles & Healthy Living Camp is the Project 'Excel Yourself' flag ship programme.

The programme will help kids who struggle with a diverse range of challenges including issues such as:

  • Struggle adhering to exercise
  • Have low self esteem
  • Resist healthy eating regimes
  • Have weight management issues
  • Shy away from active play
  • Feel isolated or bullied at school

Do you know children who have trouble in any of the areas above?

This new programme will be launched in October 2008. 

Register an interest now – Spaces will be strictly limited.

Our programme is scientifically designed to produce long lasting results. More importantly however, it is based on the principle of making physical activity FUN, ENGAGING & REWARDING. Additionally, the programme is not just a fitness camp. In order to help facilitate the most transformational behavioural change a number of additional components will be added which don’t exist in Excel’s main stream camps.

The new camp will involve these additional components:

  • Self-esteem training
  • Nutritional counselling
  • Psychological skills training to foster a ‘champions mind-set’ in the children
  • Secrets to healthy eating
  • Food preparation tuition
  • Time for self-reflection and positive self-evaluation
  • Supportive behavioural change coaching
  • Tips on how to develop social support networks beyond camp
  • Parental support programme so all the results achieved at camp is not undone over time.  

We are tremendously excited to launch this new initiative. If you or someone you know would be interested in attending this ground breaking new programme go to the Resources section of the website and sign up for updates and more information. Or click on the register an interest link above. 

PE Support Services

The activity camps are only the beginning - recognition that this social problem exists and providing solutions-based approaches to facilitate positive change is only part of the equation as far as we are concerned. Long lasting success cannot be achieved unless more comprehensive preventative measures are put in place.

 Therefore, it is our ultimate aim to provide PE departments in primary and secondary schools a nationally delivered support service which provides comprehensive and diverse exposure all the key components we feel are essential in training kids to lead active healthy lives.

Some of the components offered in our PE support service programme will be:

  • Exposure to as wide a range of activities as possible to engage kids in the notion that ‘activity’ and ‘fitness’ can be achieve in very diverse ways
  • Health and nutrition education – not just what to eat but how to eat well on a budget
  • Psychological skills training so positive habits of a lifetime are formed early – this will include tool and techniques to address issues with motivation, focus, self-esteem, positive body image, facilitative coping strategies and reducing stress/anxiety
  • The current research we are conducting is establishing the gross disparity between schools of the levels of PE and health education available. We believe ALL Scottish school children and teens should have access, tuition and a national standard which is adhered to and delivered effectively. 

Our PE support services programme aims to redress the balance we are finding between private and public schools and within certain deprived catchments. We believe more cohesive programmes can be delivered universally so every single child in Scotland is given the opportunity to thrive.

Research & Development 

We have a long term commitment to deliver supportive research in line with running evidence-based programmes which adhere to best practice policies. In the coming years we have a number of pilot research projects planned. The outcomes from these studies will help us continue to design and deliver the highest quality programmes available in Scotland.

Some of the proposed research themes are as follows:

  • Documenting current levels of health and well-being in Scottish children across a broad socio-economic spectrum within private and public schools during three crucial periods of development (aged 7, 12 and 17). This study will measure social support, access to facilities, activity levels, healthy eating patterns as well as establishing how comprehensiveness PE and health education is in Scotland’s schools.
  • Establishing the most effective interventions at countering non-compliance to a healthy lifestyle during the primary years and during the transition from secondary to post secondary education
  • Determining if positive performance outcomes would be dramatically increased in young adults attempting to adhere to a health and exercise programme during the transition into adulthood if a psychological skills training component was included within their health education before leaving school.
  • The driving force behind the research and development arm of Project Excel Yourself can best be summed up by the principles of collaboration put forward by Kindig & Stoddart (2003) in which action-based research facilitates a solutions-focused approach to social challenges thus encouraging both the sharing of research knowledge and key learning from applied practice across a wide range of practitioners, policy makers and academics to enable positive change at the most fundamental level. 
Project 'Excel Yourself'
Imagine a nation where health, fitness and well-being were common place; where obesity,
ill health and sedentary lifestyles were a thing of the past.
Change the future ... one child at a time.
Copyright: Excel Sports Academy Ltd 2008