About Us
What is Champions In Schools?
Champions in Schools (CIS) is a role-model programme that places Scotland’s top international athletes in the classroom to deliver a series of inspirational workshops. The champions encourage school pupils to set and achieve personal ambitions, pursue a healthy and active lifestyle, appreciate the value of hard work and adopt a positive, winning attitude.
CIS is aimed at pupils in their late primary and early secondary school years, and workshops are held with targeted groups of 20-30 individuals. An athlete will be assigned to a school group and he / she will visit that group three times in the school year, with visits roughly 6-8 weeks apart.
Research shows that role models are a part of everyday life and have a significant impact on the beliefs and actions of young people. Every adult is a potential role model to a young person, with sports stars in particular regarded as such.
The Programme
By bringing Scotland’s most successful and exemplary sporting heroes face-to-face with the nation’s school-children, CIS uses the power of role-models to create positive change in the lives and lifestyles of pupils.
The champions guide, advise and motivate pupils to become winners who fulfil their potential and who believe that what is important is not how good they are now, but how good they want to become. Through their own personal example, the champions demonstrate to pupils that striving to reach their ambitions and making positive lifestyle choices can produce fulfilling and rewarding results.
By the end of the programme pupils will be fully versed in the key character qualities required to be successful in their own lives, as ably demonstrated by the role model.
CIS has five core objectives, and the workshops are designed specifically to address these targets using a range of mediums – talks, games, group discussion, multi-media and physical activities. The core objectives are:
a) Pupils will have increased enjoyment of sport and physical activity.
b) Pupils will learn to set and achieve goals.
c) Pupils will appreciate the value of effort and hard work.
d) Pupils will understand the benefits of and keep a healthy diet and lifestyle.
e) Pupils will develop a positive, winning attitude.
The Workshops
The objective of the Champions in Schools workshops is to provide young people with the tools to enable them to adopt a positive winning attitude in all areas of their lives. Our role models use a wide variety of techniques to achieve this. Each workshop has a key theme:
Workshop 1: Inspiration and Goal-setting
Workshop 2: Health, Fitness & Nutrition
Workshop 3: Winning Attitudes