The Game Sense approach (Australian Sports Commission: ASC, 1996) continues to assume prominence in sport policy through the Playing for Life Philosophy of Sport Australia and the association of the Game Sense approach with the Sport Australia Sporting Schools Program. The Game Sense approach sits alongside the physical literacy strategy within the Playing for Life Philosophy https://www.sportaus.gov.au/p4l/game_sense_approach The Game Sense Cards (ASC, 1999) were incorporated into the Playing for Life: Active After Schools Communities program cards (ASC, 2005) and continue to be available online through the Sport Australia Website. In recent years, Tennis Australia has leant into the Game Sense approach substantially in development of its comprehensive Tennis for Schools resources for primary and secondary physical education.
The Game Sense approach has been elaborated upon and examples of the application of the approach globally provided through the work of Richard Light and Stephen Harvey, who emphasise the Game Sense approach as an athlete-centred Positive Pedagogy for sport coaching (Light, 2017; Light & Harvey, 2019, 2021). Richard also recently worked with Christina Curry (Western Sydney University: Sydney) to produce the edited book Game Sense for Teaching and Coaching : International Perspectives (published by Routledge, 2021). Ray Breed (Swinburne University: Melbourne) and Michael Spittle (Victoria University: Melbourne) recently released an update of Developing Game Sense in Physical Education and Sport through Human Kinetics. Shane Pill (Flinders University: Adelaide) explains the Game Sense approach as Play with Purpose, and through the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation provides resources for using a Game Sense approach to teach fundamental movement skills in primary/elementary PE (Pill, 2013) and middle school physical education (Pill, 2013), as well as resources to teach a range of sports. Recently, Shane was editor of Perspectives in Game Based Coaching, published by Routledge (2021). Greg Forrest (University of Wollongong: Wollongong) interprets a game-based approach as the Grammar of Games model in his teaching, coaching and community coach development, while at UniSA: Adelaide Wendy Piltz continues to work with the Play Practice model (published by Human Kinetics). Narelle Eather (University of Newcastle: Newcastle) is producing interesting research with the MASTER coaching program (Eather et al., 2019, 2020) targeted at a game-based positive sporting environment for junior sport. Ian Renshaw (Queensland University of Technology: Brisbane) is internationally recognised for his work in a constraints-led approach, with his work influencing physical education curriculum development in Queensland as well as sport coaching globally. He is prolific in his publication output, with his most recent collaboration being The Constraints-led Approach to Golf Coaching (Routledge, 2021). The constraints-led approach has been enthusiastically embraced by many in the field of sport and exercise science, and in Australia Carl Woods (Victoria University: Melbourne) in recent years has been collaborating on many interesting projects explaining learning and performance in sport through an ecological dynamics lens. A very interesting and unique application of teaching games for understanding, John Williams (University of Canberra: Canberra) collaborated with Shane Pill (Flinders University: Adelaide) to investigate use of the Game Sense approach to teach for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander History and Culture perspectives in a primary school PE setting. The 2022 and 2023 Australian Sports Commission National Coaching and Officiating conferences featured practical workshops on coaching player game sense through Play with Purpose. The Rugby Australia coach education program has recently adopted Play with Purpose as a framework for their game-based coaching coach education. Many Australian game-based ‘pracademics’ appeared as authors in the 2023 Routledge book Teaching Games and Sport for Understanding (Rick Baldock, Michael Davies, John Evans, Richard Light, Shane Pill, Brendan SueSee, John Williams), a book recognising developments in game-based teaching and coaching since the 1982 and 1983 Bulletin of Physical Education special editions on games teaching that described the approach that has come to be known as ‘TGfU’. References Breed, R., & Spittle, M. (2020). Developing Game Sense in Physical Education and Sport. Human Kinetics. Eather, N., Jones, B. Miller, A. & Morgan, P. J. (2019). Evaluating the impact of a coach development intervention for improving coaching practices in junior football (soccer): The “MASTER” pilot study. Journal of Sports Sciences, 1-13. Eather, N., Miller, A., Jones, B., & Morgan, P. J. (2020). Evaluating the impact of a coach development intervention for improving coaching practices and player outcomes in netball: The MASTER coaching randomized control trial. International journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 174795412097696. Light, R. (2017). Positive Pedagogy for Sport Coaching : Athlete-centred coaching for individual sports. Routledge. Light, R., & Curry, C. (2021). Game Sense for Teaching and Coaching International Perspectives. Routledge. Light, R., & Harvey, S. (2019). Positive Pedagogy for Sport Coaching. Routledge. Light, R., & Harvey, S. (2021). Applied Positive Pedagogy in Sport Coaching International Cases. Routledge. Pill, S. (2018). Perspectives on Game-based Coaching. Routledge. Piltz, W., & Launder. A. (2012). Play Practice Engaging and Developing Skilled Players From Beginner to Elite. Human Kinetics. Renshaw, I,, Arnott, P.,, & McDowall, G. (2021). The Constraints-Led Approach to Golf Coaching. Routledge. Williams, J., & Pill, S. (2020). Using a Game Sense Approach to Teach Buroinjin as an Aboriginal Game to Address Social Justice in Physical Education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 39, 176-185. |
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