​This blog represents the starter for a series of 4 blogs to generate debate and discussion and it invites your contribution.
 
In the first instance I shall outline the key principles of TGFU in its original form and invite colleagues to articulate the principles that guide their practice in the approach that they use.  There are important differences that need to be accessible and carefully considered to enable us to advance our thinking.
 
I believe that it is important to articulate these more clearly so that readers can form a clear conception of what is entailed.  As a result, I am inviting colleagues who are advocates of different variants or approaches to the teaching and coaching of game to articulate their key principles.  This does not exclude anyone who feels that they can make a contribution to the discussions
 
When we have a range of these insights it will enable readers to generate a much better understanding of the task of improving the teaching and coaching of games and how to make them accessible to a wider audience
 
This initial blog will be followed by three more on the following topics:
 
     2.  The idea of a Curriculum Framework for Games Education
     3.  The development of a Practice Framework that articulates the key processes to guide our thinking in making games    
          accessible to a wider audience, providing a rich environment for learning and shaping games.
     4.  How we can construct A Pedagogy of Engagement and develop the idea of a Pedagogical Capability?
 
Once again your comments, reactions and contributions are key to the success of this project.

• It provided an alternative way of making games accessible to young people.
• It challenged accepted practice.
• It highlighted that game forms facilitate ‘learning in context’, they are situated in practices that represent what young people will experience in a game.
• It emphasised ‘Understanding in Games’: everyone talks about Understanding but no one explains what it entails.

1. Understanding: why is this important?  

• We want children to understand games (make sense of them)
• We want them to understand why they should play games. 

 
    2.   Intelligent Performance

• We want players to understand what an intelligent performance entails and to enable them to demonstrate this in games

 
However, what does this mean in practice?
 
A focus on ‘understanding’ –

1. Understanding of a game
2. Understanding in a game (intelligent performance) as well as
3. Understanding how to shape a game (for teachers and coaches).

 
Learning about games and learning what they can offer – appreciating games.

• It introduced the idea of Primary and Secondary rules and their relevance to learning about games
•  It developed a Games classification
•  Problem posing - in the form of a game that would provide learners with puzzles to unravel – how do you outwit your opponents?
•  It provided a structure to enable teachers to think how they can shape the way that games are presented to young people.
•  It highlighted the need for Modification Principles to enable and guide the shaping process
•  Self-directed learning to unravel the puzzles within a game became a key element.
•  It sought to give young people the opportunity to contribute to how the game was played and seeking their views – in today’s terminology – giving them a ‘voice”.
•  The focus on games making was seen as a way of enabling young people to understand the role of rules, modification principles, how to improve a game and helping young people to devise their own games.
•  It posed the question:  how can we enable players to ‘make sense of games’ so that they can understand what they can do and turn it into an intelligent performance?

 
This outline provides a set of key statements that underpinned the development of TGFU.
 
Postscript
Alan Launder in his first book “Play Practice” raises a number of key points that go beyond the original conception of TGFU.  I shall highlight 3:

• Misunderstanding the difference between techniques and skills.
• Our understanding of Games Sense
• Creating a platform for skilled play

​Alan Launder was very critical of traditional methods that he saw as ineffective because they overemphasise technical ability i.e. the ability to control and direct the ball, and ignore the importance of a close alignment between a practice and the real game.  On the other hand, he felt that tactical approaches are often of little value because they minimise or can even ignore the importance of technical ability in skilled play.  Like the TGFU team he felt that we should clarify the nature of skilled performance in sport by defining the actions of controlling and directing the ball in games as techniques, not as ‘skills’, not as ‘the basic skills’ and not as ‘the fundamentals’.   Skills are the application of appropriate techniques in a game.
 
Nevertheless, Alan believed that by adopting a TGFU framework there was a danger of neglecting technical competence and I believe that he has made an important point. I shall return to this in a future blog in outlining the idea of a Games Capability.

There appears to be three different ways of speaking of Games Sense and clarification of how they are used would be very useful.
 Making sense of games (Rod Thorpe) in TGFU.

•  Games Sense as a title for a specific way of thinking about teaching and coaching games
•  Alan Launder’s use of games sense in Play Practice

Alan speaks of creating a platform for skilled play.  This is an important point that does not appear to have penetrated the conceptual thinking underpinning the teaching and coaching of games and outlined in the literature.

• Understanding how the rules of the game and their interpretation can influence play
• Coping with all the different time demands in a game, in practice time or the time to make good/effective decisions
• Physical courage and toughness
• Athleticism/Endurance (the ability to cover the ground – pitch or court - for a whole game)
• Mental toughness when under pressure
• Ability to read the play and develop the instinct to recognise meaningful information/cues and meaningful patterns in a game
• Ability to think ahead of the play
• Clear communication between players and the coach
• Attention span

For me, creating a platform for skilled play (aka intelligent performance) requires a ‘Set of Capabilities’ that go beyond a focus on technical and tactical aspects of a game. These need to be thoroughly discussed and shared in future blogs.

​I invite colleagues to contribute to the process of articulating what guides and informs our practice so as to enable readers to consult the wealth of thinking that has gone into our understanding of improving the teaching and coaching of games. Please contribute to this debate.