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Game sense
1. What is Game sense?
Game sense is a modern approach to teaching physical education, where an emphasis
is placed on individual student learning via experiences.
That is, teaching is focused on the students learning through participation in modified
games, designed to activate fundamental movement skills such as running, throwing
and catching.
The PDHPE Syllabus links closely to many values Game Sense provides such as decision
making which is shown throughout all stages of the syllabus. (NESA, 2018)
The concept was originally developed in the United Kingdom in the 80’s as a way to
combat students limited ability to play some games (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982)
Game sense has been seen throughout Australia since the 90’s, but has only started to
become mainstream in the education system from the last decade.
2. Isn’t this the way PE has always been taught?
No! Game Sense is not to be confused with just setting up a sport game for the
class and letting them play. Like putting two posts on a field, giving them a soccer
ball and letting them play.
Nor is it specifically teaching students set skills, before incorporating them into
drills and eventually a full game.
Game Sense involves the teacher creating a game, which can have all students
participating and not being left out. While the mechanics of the game are
contributing to the students’ development of pre identified movement skill/s.
3. What are the different aspects of Game Sense?
Game sense can be broken down it 4 different sections which the teacher must explore
and achieve. (Light, 2013)
> Design of appropriate game and activities by the teacher.
> Questions from the teacher towards the students during the game (As to
inspire a way of thinking – as opposed to directly telling the student an answer).
> Use of responses(both verbal and physical) to questions in order to assess and
analyse the students’ abilities.
> Developing a safe environment where students feel comfortable to learn via their
own experiences.
Essentially ‘Technique + Game Context = Skill’ (Pill & Hewitt, 2017)
4. Rationale – Why should Game Sense be used?
Child development is a multidimensional notion which is applicable universally. That is,
everyone on this earth has had to go through the same stages of development as a child.
What changes between individuals however, is how they experience this development and
what factors contribute towards it.
Not everyone learns in the same way, and given the ratio of teacher to students in a class,
it would be impractical to try and teach each individual student in a different manner. A
such, a concept such as Game Sense is extremely beneficial as it allows the teacher to
create a target skill or ability and students get the opportunity to learn it however best
suits them, often in an unintentional trial and error approach. Many theorists such as (Bell
& Penney, 2004) argue that making a mistake or error positively contributes to student
development more so than the act of being correct does, thus allowing students the
opportunity to create mistakes in a Game Sense approach to teaching PE is a huge benefit.
5. Rationale – Why should Game Sense be used?
Another benefit of a Game Sense approach to PE is that it allows and promotes
strategic thinking from the students. They are no longer following and copying the
instructions of a teacher/coach, thus they have to identify strategies to complete the
game and actively make decisions.
Furthermore, a game sense approach leads away from the notion of having sport
games where there are 25% of the class who ‘run the show’ while the other 75% have
minimal involvement. The modification of games and actives by the teacher creates a
game that encourages or in some cases requires active participation from all students,
thus there is never an imbalance of power between students throughout the lesson.
6. References
Light, R. (2013). Game Sense: Pedagogy for performance, participation and enjoyment. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/2089582818_R_Light
Pill, S., & Hewitt, M. (2017). Tennis Coaching: Applying the Game Sense Approach. Retrieved from:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08924562.2016.1273807?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Bell, T., & Penney, D. (2004). PlaySmart: Developing thinking and problem-solving skills in the context of
the national curriculum in physical education in England. In J. Wright, D. MacDonald,
& L. Burrows (Eds.), Critical inquiry and problem solving in physical education (pp. 49–61). New York,
NY: Routledge.
NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). (2018). NSW Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum: PDHPE
K-10 syllabus. Sydney, Australia: NSW Education Standards Authority. Retrieved from
https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/pdhpe/pdhpe-k-10-2018
Bunker, D., & Thorpe, R. (1982). A model for the teaching of games in the secondary school. Bulletin of
Physical Education, 10, 9-16.
