Passes and 'space' in invasion games and sports

Hi All,

I have just begun examining some of the elements of play with invasion sports and have been examining two particular elements in relation to observation and analysis of players and play; the space that players feel safe and not confronted in and the type of pass they throw. Gréhaigne, Richard and Griffin (the text we base our understanding of play on) suggest that there are four types of spaces that are important to players in invasion sports

Observations on the cost of developing 'Game Sense'

Hi All,

One of the interesting things I noted during the season was the cost of developing game sense on the players. In this I mean the mental cost on the team performance. It was obvious that in the AFL team, we played really well for three quarters of the game and matched it with the best of the teams. However,

Been a while - AFL Training

Hi All,

Been a while, sorry for the delay, PhD's do take a lot of time and energy.
For the AFL and invasion aficionados, had a few games you might want to try in your coaching or units in invasion sports that build on some of the previous posts. In the last 4 weeks, we had a variation to the 9 squares, simplifying it down to two halves but adding a couple of primary rules to get the play we wanted.

In essence, our training game was two teams of nine

The Tipping Point

I was having discussion with a colleague and we were talking about the moment in a class where we try to create the balance between confusion and understanding for the students and they then run with the information and make some really great leaps in learning. We did not know what it was called but I mentioned the idea of a 'tipping point' (with Malcolm Gladwell's book in mind) in a lesson, the particular moment in problem solving that can tip students seemingly in three ways, on the path to understanding or to disengagement or complete passiveness. It seemed to me the mark of the expert teacher was the skill of creating the appropriate difficulty in the set problem, then recognise this 'tipping point' moment and then bring all students through the learning experience with the appropriate balance of discomfort and reward.

The Impact and Influence on beliefs of Coaching and Training

Being a teacher and a coach is a fascinating and frustrating challenge at times. The issue with our line of work is that
1. Everyone has been to school and
2. Everyone seems to have been coached by someone
3. Everyone has an opinion on what is best based on this
4. Nearly everyone has tried a method of getting fit

Of course, no matter how experienced we are, we take with us elements of that coach or player and it is this that forms our beliefs on what should be an appropriate session.

Isn't it amazing what 5 and 6 year olds can do?

I have been involved  / elected (as you do) with the coaching my youngest son's 6 years soccer team and as a result, two other small sided teams. Neither of the boys can escape, I think that is why my daughter does circus: Dad can't hassle her, even though I try to get her to think of how she can use the elements of composition when putting together her tissu routine - she did have her turn for three years). What has been interesting is the idea of small sided games and the narrow view of 'skill'. The aim in the manual is to get a similar level of 'skill' and develop 'skill' for the players so that when they move through the ages, there is consistency. Thus it seems many clubs band the teams together and then have elements of passing and trapping and kicking at different stations. At the end, all of the kids play. Even noted soccer afficionado and commentator, Craig Foster, notes the importance of this development but again it is such a narrow view of skill, it's the specific movement skills of football. Unfortunately, the

Why does our senior course in NSW have no movement?

I have been looking with interest at the Stage 6 Dance syllabus. It really leaves the PDHPE Stage 6 course for dead when we look at the content. The main reason? It actually assess movement and student's use of movement.

One of the biggest weaknesses of the PDHPE syllabus in NSW is that we study and assess concepts related to movement, well, sitting down. One of the key elements of the syllabus is assessed through pen and paper. In Dance, the students get to choreograph, they get to costume, they get to study history, they examine the elements of biomechanics and physiology in depth and most importantly, they get to dance. They have a key assessment component involving movement. It is the same with music, the students get to perform!

'Talk' and its implications

Hi All,

Had the opportunity to watch some 12 year's representative games in AFL on the weekend that my son played in. Had a little listen to a number of coaches (had to be discrete when listening to the other team's coaches) and all had a common theme that came up, that of 'talk'. All coaches mentioned that 'we need to up the talk' as a key indicator of implementation of the strategies and tactics which would assist the individuals make decisions in relation to play. I have often wondered about talk and how often we teach it (or don't). Models such as TGfU and Game Sense don't deal with this vital component but I suspect that is because the models still don't completely accurately and completely represent the complexity of game play or the authors have realised that the coaching and PE world were not ready for this as well as strategy and tactics and decision making.

AFL Training - Thursday Session

Just a quick post about the follow session. Of interest was the 15 years players who came over and wanted to join the session with my team. I am very lucky that their coach is very tolerant of me imposing my ideas on his sessions. We followed up Tuesday's session with a repeat tonight with all really keen that they could play for an hour. The quality of play was much better as the players understood the functionality of the game's rules and could really understand how to operate in the restrictions (self imposed and set by the rules that we added to create the circumstances that we want to develop). What is occurring is that the players are gradually developing more of a sense of responsibility for their own play. They are quite keen to take the time to set up their plays and gradually realising that they are responsible for plays that need to be made off the stoppages and the movement within the zones.

AFL Training

Hi All,

Ran an interesting session at AFL training last night and thought you might want to give it a go in your invasion units. Most of the players range between 11 and 14 years of age so suitable for Year 6/7 students but also for older students but I have also run this with 10 year olds in football (soccer). The great thing is that it is suitable for all types of invasion games, especially football, netball, basketball, ultimate type invasion sports.

We want to develop the principle of play (or tactic or action rule - same thing) of running through the lines, in that we want the full back of half back flank to run past and provide an overlapping option or the half forward to run back and receive a pass and the winger to run on and fill the vacant forward flank position.

PE Invasion Games 2

As I mentioned in the last blog, our student ran this lesson at the Local High School she is doing her PEX at. She did a really good job after 'letting go' of trying to tell he students the passes they needed to throw. I had a keen interest in the play and the following elements really caught my attention.

Firstly, I had numerous conversations with three students who were on the sideline.

PE Invasion Games 1

Had a look at one of our PEX students today teaching a Year 9 Girls group in Invasion Games. Her summary of the class was that they were fairly inactive and not really motivated. I have included the lesson / unit I advised her to run and was wondering if anyone wants to try it. I'll post the results of her lesson on the next blog.

The email to her went as follows.

AFL Training and the 'Gifted' Player - Another instance

Ron Barassi, the legendary AFL coach and player suggested that players should not be proud of natural ability: it comes from their parents. It is what they do with it, the work they do that really will make them worthy as players.

As I watched may AFL team training tonight I again observed the reaction of some of the most naturally gifted players (but not all) as they tried to resolve a problem.

What is good Physical Education?

Had a fascinating discussion with a couple of PE teachers the other day regarding the purpose of PE, the aim of PE programs and the validity of assessment and units in PE. As a result of this, I decided to view the website of the major employer of PE teachers in NSW to find out what they believe makes 'a good PE lesson'. It was very interesting. I never realised that ‘learning’ in PE has all but disappeared! There is the word ‘development’ but this seems to be the only link. I suppose one could argue that PE encourages to ‘learn’ to love Physical Activity but key elements included a lifelong positive attitude to Physical Activity, the obligatory ‘fun’ and tasks that everyone can achieve through motor skill development, with this presented as the unarguable ‘truth’ as to why students don’t like PE.

Net Court Game Play

Had a group of non PE students training to teach the subject and had them doing the usual game we developed to enhance understanding of net court sports. We set up the tutorial with a game of 8 aside Newcombe ball and then expanded this to Volleyball of the Badminton court. Of course we added that they had to use the dig (forearm pass), set and spike, serve correctly and use the rotation system on serve. As always they had very few could execute, most had very little idea of the rotation and most avoided the ball by choice, pulling sleeves over wrists to stop the ball hurting (a sad reflection on their school experiences in volleyball and the capacity of the method used in the time available to teach them).

Thoughts from a Trial Game 2 - Thinking and Movement Education

What is the relationship between cognitive processing involved in understanding games and sports and the teaching of games and sports?
We all learnt at University that there are three components to quality Physical Education: the psychomotor component (of which PA is just a part), the affective component and the cognitive component, an area that I believe, has been neglected in our teaching for a number of years. It seems that PE teachers certainly like students to learn motor skills and, of course, fun is supposedly obligatory, but we don’t seem to teach the students how to approach elements of game play in a cognitive way. However, do the people we teach view this as important or needed? Perhaps not.

Thoughts from a Trial Game Observations 1 - PE, Sport and Physical Activity

I watched my son’s Cricket trials this week and I had the opportunity and time (as you do as Cricket spectator) to reflect on two key issues that have been unresolved in Physical Education. Firstly PE’s ‘blurred relationship’ with Sport and more recently, Physical Activity and secondly, the attitudes of students to the more cognitive aspects related to the problems that are presented in Physical Education environments, in this case, a Sport.

Hi All

Hi All

We have set up this blog as our part in reviving Physical Education in Australia. We are interested in having quality movement education and innovative practices in PE. Our overall aim is to promote this by connecting researchers and teacher educators, secondary and primary practitioners and preservice teachers. We hope this interactive space will provide a platform for the promotion of PE research and practice.

As we say, join up and watch this space.

Greg Forrest and Dana Perlman