Let's talk about Game Sense
Game Sense is an innovative, student-centred approach to physical education that places the game at the heart of the session. The Game Sense approach to teaching physical education was developed in the mid 1990’s, as a sport specific variation of the Bunker-Thorpe model of Teaching Games for Understanding.
It focusses on the game, rather than on technical skill drills and practice, to encourage students to develop their tactical awareness and decision making and how these apply to different sport technical skills (from why to how). (Breed & Spittle, 2021).
Breed and Spittle (2021) describe it is an instructional approach for teaching and learning that aims to:
- Emphasise game understanding and the development of tactics and strategy
- Assist players in developing technical skills as they recognise and understand their importance in the context of games
- Enhance social and communication skills by presenting small teams with strategic challenges to solve (personal, social relationships)
The pedagogy can be simplified into three easy steps:
- Develop and establish clear objectives i.e. what are you trying to achieve?
- Use of questioning to guide learners and help them to explore movement options/solutions
- Modify task constraints and replay the game to challenge learners to discover new movement solutions
Questioning is a vital component as it challenges and facilitates further learning and should be open-ended. Breed and Spittle (2011) suggest there are three ways of asking questions during game play. These include:
- Strategy-guiding: help with decision making (e.g.: when should you run, pass or shoot the ball? Why?)
- Sport-linking: help to transfer skills (e.g.: when in netball and soccer should you consider slowing down the play?)
- Scenario: help to determine modifications to be implemented by the teacher (e.g.: what type of defence should you use if you are two goals down with one minute left to play?)
What are the benefits of implementing the Game Sense model?
With the recent COVID pandemic and remote learning, students have become more sedentary and disengaged with physical activity. The Physical Activity and exercise guidelines for young people (5 to 17 years) outline that the recommended amount of physical activity is at least 60 minutes per day, however, studies show that this is the case for only a small percentage. The Victorian Government’s Physical and Sport Education Policy also mandates specific time requirements for physical education per week.
When the Game Sense model is applied to all Physical Education lessons students experience benefits far beyond meeting these recommendations, such as:
- Develops participants who are smart, not just skilled
- Allows for modifications to better suit variety of skill levels
- Improves fundamental movement skills relevant to each developmental stage
- Builds confidence and team work
- Starts with games involving basic skills and gradually builds to make more complex game situations
- Develops the whole student whereby all four physical literacy domains are referenced:
- Physical – movement skills, coordination, strength, speed, flexibility, etc
- Psychological – confidence, motivation, engagement, enjoyment
- Social - relationships, collaboration, ethics
- Cognitive – tactics, strategy, reasoning, rules
How to structure a lesson using the Game Sense model
The pedagogical challenge of the Game Sense approach is in the purposeful design or selection, and then shaping of games to focus the play on the concepts and movement responses to be learnt. Small sided games are played to develop the skills and tactics transferable across different sports (shown in table below).
This allows students to build their skills across the game categories, rather than focusing on a singular skill only used in one sport.Students learn these transferable skills in a modified and progressive environment where there is more emphasis and encouragement on tactical and decision-making skills, promoting achievement and thus enjoyment through student centred learning.
Game Sense lessons focus on:
- Playing small-sided games to maximise participation and present only the main rules
- Using open-ended questioning to encourage participants to critically explore tactics, techniques and strategies
- Replaying games after questioning to allow participants to implement/improve areas discussed
- Modifying games (rules, equipment, aim) to address constraints and promote inclusion and success
The constraints-based approach views the learner as an active problem-solver and emphasises a guided-discovery approach to learning. Teachers need to be viewed as a facilitator who adjusts and changes constraints to guide the learner towards finding appropriate movement solutions. By being able to better understand constraints, teachers (as well as coaches and students) can more effectively manipulate learning activities and strategies to suit changing environments, and the varying needs of different students
What does the model look like in ‘real terms’?
In each lesson you would have 2-3 (depending on time constraints) small sided, modified games focussing on a skill and/or tactical aspect of a traditional sport. Below is just one game idea from each of the Game Sense themes that you could use.
Need a little extra help implementing Game Sense in your lessons?
If you are new to teaching HPE at level 7 and 8, or just in need of some great ideas to incorporate Game Sense into your classes, we offer in-school workshops for staff to assist with planning and implementing a Game Sense approach.
A range of unit plans and assessment ideas is also available to get you started, and can be purchased here.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to get in touch with a member of our PL team, Renae Fraser or Jo Ritson or phone 03 9274 8914 for a chat.