The document discusses the Game Sense (GS) approach to teaching physical education. GS is a games-based approach that locates learning within modified games to develop tactical awareness, decision making, and enjoyment. It draws from Teaching Games for Understanding and views games as the context for developing interconnected technical, tactical, and cognitive skills. Using GS allows teachers to tailor their lessons based on students' abilities and needs. Research shows GS improves students' game skills, engagement, and satisfaction with physical activity. Overall, the GS approach emphasizes game-centered learning to develop competent, confident movers and thinkers.

1. GAME SENSE
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

2. LEARNING AS YOU PLAY
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT GAME SENSE
According to Townsend (2007):
Some movement skills come naturally — e.g. we kick our legs and throw things
as babies.
Others take developing — e.g. we learn methods of kicking and throwing
through instruction.
Still others are adapted from a developing sense of how to play a game — e.g.
we learn to modify how we kick and throw according to rule-based unscripted
game play when we make mistakes and then collectively or individually figure
out ways to solve the problems we encounter.
As Light (2012) contends:
The Game Sense (GS) approach is games-based by locating learning in games
so that learners can utilise all their game skills in realistic contexts to develop
tactical awareness, improve decision making and enjoy themselves more.

3. MORE DEEPLY ABOUT GAME SENSE
GS was developed from, and remains closely related to Thrope’s Teaching
Games for Understanding concept. Rather than separate game-specific
movement techniques and understandings, these approaches view games as the
appropriate performance context within which such interrelated core factors
need to be learned and practiced together (den Duyn, as cited in Pill, 2016).
Playing games according to this approach enables players to tailor their tactical
reactions to utilise their technical skill proficiencies as best they can according
to how they evaluate and sum up their options within the ever-emerging
conditions that are generated by dynamic game play (Pill, 2016).
This means that after they have sufficiently developed appropriate Fundamental
Movement Skills (FMS), all 12 of which have been introduced by the end of Stage
1 Year 2 (Board of Studies, NSW (BOS), 2007), young learners can begin utilising
and honing them in suitably modified games.

4. Retrieved from https://melissayoungteachlearn.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/fundamental-movement-skills.png
THE 12 FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT
SKILLS
(NSW Department of Education and Training, 2000)

5. BENEFITS OF THE GS PEDAGOGY
WHY I USE IT IN PE
As an engaging teaching approach, because children really do like to
play games, GS can contribute substantially towards helping learners to
develop their
 movement control
 communication
 strategic understanding
 capacity to sum up contextual states of play
 reactive and proactive decision-making and
 overall grasp of all aspects of the games they play.
Apart from that it has other important strengths.

6. SOME MORE GS STRENGTHS
I have learnt to use the GS approach to modify the accessibility levels of games
by simplifying or enhancing them according to different students’ abilities.
I have found that maximum benefit can be obtained from this approach because
it is student-centred and enquiry-based.
This means that students are valued, not only as corporeal but also as rational
and considerate beings who are capable of learning from and building upon
their experiences, as well as finding solutions to many of the problems they
encounter.
PE teachers, such as myself, can therefore design appropriate environments
based on their observations of their students’ needs to focus on developing
movement, tactical awareness, game reading and/or decision making skills —
just as Light and Robert (2010) attest.

7. AND A FEW MORE
Evidence shows that teachers of the GS approach believe that it improves their
students’ game learning, particularly cognitively (Pill, 2016). This finding
corroborated den Dyun’s (as cited in Pill, 2016) contention that the GS approach
facilitates the development of thinking players.
The GS approach’s emphasis on game-centred learning is credited with
improving students’ interest in, engagement with and satisfaction from physical
activities, as well as with increasing the amount they do (Pill, 2016).
Kidman’s (2001) research finds that, when practice is conducted in game
situations, players learn to make better informed decisions, value the
knowledge they gain for themselves, and develop greater ability to
independently play the game in their personally unique ways.
These strengths are all of great value in people’s lives and, by utilising the GS
approach to enable my students to realise them, I can contribute to achieving an
important objective of the PDHPE syllabus (BOS, 2007) — to develop children’s
skills to move competently and confidently in both formal and informal physical

8. REFERENCES
Board of Studies, New South Wales. (2007). Personal development, health and physical
education, K-6 syllabus. Retrieved from
http://k6.Boardofstudies.Nsw.Edu.Au/files/pdhpe/k6_pdhpe_syl.Pdf
Kidman, L. (2001). Developing decision makers: An empowerment approach to coaching.
Christchurch, New Zealand: Innovative Print Communications.
Light, R. (2012). Game sense: Pedagogy for performance, participation and enjoyment.
Routledge. Retrieved from
http://ebookcentral.Proquest.Com.Ezproxy1.Library.Usyd.Edu.Au/lib/usyd/reader.Action?D
ocid=981715
Light, R. L., & Robert, J. E. (2010). The impact of Game Sense pedagogy on Australian rugby
coaches' practice: A question of pedagogy. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 15(2),
103-115. doi:10.1080/17408980902729388
NSW Department of Education and Training. (2000). Get skilled get active. Retrieved from
https://www.healthykids.nsw.gov.au/downloads/file/teacherschildcare/Get_skilled_get_act
ive_booklet.pdf
Pill, S. (2016). An appreciative inquiry exploring game sense teaching in physical education.
Sport, Education and Society, 21(2), 279-297. doi:10.1080/13573322.2014.912624