Game Sense in PE: Teaching Games for Understanding | ConnectedPE

Game Sense in PE: A Complete Guide to Teaching Games for Understanding

By Jarrod Robinson · May 27, 2026 · 8 min read

Most PE curricula revolve around games and sports — but are students actually learning from them? Game Sense specialist Ray breaks down the pedagogy of small-sided designer games, purposeful questioning, and task constraints that transform game play into genuine learning.

You set up a game of 10v10 in your PE class. One ball. A small court. Two minutes later, the ball has been intercepted 30 times, half the students haven't touched it, and the game looks like organised chaos. Sound familiar?

It's one of the most common frustrations in teaching games and sports — students are playing, but are they actually learning? Are they developing the tactical awareness, technical skills, and social connections that make PE genuinely meaningful?

That's exactly the challenge that Ray, an Australian game-based learning specialist and founder of PD4PE, has spent over 25 years solving. In this ConnectedPE conference session, Ray delivers a masterclass on the Game Sense model — a pedagogy that transforms how we teach games and sports through small-sided designer games, purposeful questioning, and task constraints that adapt learning in real time.

Whether you're already using Game Sense, Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU), or you're curious about moving beyond traditional skill drills, this session is packed with practical strategies you can implement in your next lesson.

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What Is Game Sense (and Why Does It Matter)?

Game Sense is an instructional approach for teaching games and sports that emphasises game understanding and the development of tactics and strategy — but not at the cost of technical skill development. Students learn both together, within the context of actual games.

If you've heard of Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) in the UK, Play Practice in New Zealand, or Tactical Games Models in the US, you're in the same territory. As Ray explains upfront:

Game Sense is just a term we use for a pedagogy to effectively teach small-sided games. In the UK, we call it more TGfU. New Zealand's got Play, Practice and Game Sense. For me it's just a term that we use for teaching through games.

Ray

The model has evolved significantly since its origins. While it was originally developed to focus predominantly on tactical skills, Ray's approach now addresses all learning domains — cognitive, movement, social, and affective — through a single, elegant pedagogical framework.

At its core, the Game Sense model revolves around three elements:

  1. Small-sided designer games — Games designed or modified to target specific outcomes
  2. Purposeful questioning — Open-ended questions that develop game understanding
  3. Task constraints — Modifications that shape the game to change its focus or difficulty

What Students Actually Value Most in PE

One of the most compelling moments in Ray's session comes when he shares data from years of surveying PE teachers in Victoria, Australia. When asked to rank the most important student outcomes in PE, teachers consistently identify:

  1. Fun and enjoyment — the most important part of PE
  2. Social skills and relationships
  3. Values
  4. Tactical skills
  5. Technical skills

Notice that technical skills — the thing traditional PE teaching obsesses over — rank last. That doesn't mean they're unimportant. It means that when we design our PE programmes, we should be thinking about all five outcomes, not just whether students can perform a textbook chest pass.

The Game Sense model is uniquely positioned to address all of these simultaneously. Students in small-sided games are having fun, building relationships with teammates, developing tactical awareness, and refining their technique — all within a single activity.

By creating units around small-sided games, even when the emphasis is on tactical and technical skill development, the model itself serves really nicely to create fantastic outcomes in the affective domain. They're in small teams, they work together, they have to work together to achieve an outcome.

Ray

Why Traditional Skill Drills Often Fall Short

Ray makes a strong case for rethinking the traditional "master the technique, then play the game" approach. He challenges a fundamental assumption most of us learned at university:

If you took a student who had never kicked a soccer ball before, and you got that student when they're 10 years of age, are you able to teach them how to kick the ball using a closed skill method — just practising kicking to a partner or at a wall — and gradually step them up to playing successfully in a game? The answer to that is no. It's pretty tough to do.

Ray

This is the difference between linear and nonlinear pedagogy:

Ray is refreshingly honest about the challenge: nonlinear pedagogy is harder to implement. Research shows many teachers who try Game Sense or TGfU approaches initially revert back to more structured, linear methods because they feel more comfortable.

The best method of control and discipline I get is to actually get the students as active as you can — short, sharp activities and enjoyable activities.

Ray

But the payoff is significant. In nonlinear approaches, practice happens within variable conditions, which contextualises the learning so students understand why they're performing particular skills. The ability to adapt movement patterns — rather than reproduce a single 'correct' technique — is actually far more important for successful game play.

The Art and Science of Questioning: The Heart of Game Sense

If there's one takeaway that defines Ray's entire approach, it's this: questioning is the single most important skill in teaching games. It's what transforms a small-sided game from "just playing" into genuine learning.

For me, one of the most important points of pedagogy and student learning is the way that we question the students. Teaching is much more of an art than a science. We have lots of research and evidence to fall back on, but developing our pedagogy is a real art and a skill that takes practice.

Ray

The Five Types of Questions

Ray's model identifies five distinct question types, each serving a different pedagogical purpose:

  1. Technical guiding questions — Focus on skill execution: "How should you pass the ball?" or "How could you perform a bounce pass?"
  2. Tactical guiding questions — Focus on decision-making: "When should you pass the ball?" or "Where should you run?"
  3. Strategy guiding questions — Focus on team play: "How can your team create space?" or "What's meant by using the width of the court?"
  4. Scenario questions — Set specific game situations: "You're one point up, 30 seconds left — what changes?"
  5. Sport linking questions — Build transfer across sports: "How was that game similar to soccer? What tactics are similar across all invasion sports?"

Plus a sixth category: affective questions — "What did you most enjoy about that activity?" or "How are you going to ensure you include all team members in the play?"

The When–Where–How Framework

Ray shares a brilliantly simple framework for structuring questions around three starter words:

Instead of telling students "Good pass," try asking "Why was that a good pass?" or "Did you see a different option?" The shift from telling to questioning is where real learning happens.

How to Plan a Game Sense Lesson (The Nonlinear Way)

One of the most practical parts of Ray's session is his approach to lesson planning. Forget the traditional step-by-step lesson plan. Here's what a Game Sense lesson plan looks like:

  1. Define your overarching outcome — e.g., "Students will develop the ability to keep possession of the ball in invasion games"
  2. Prepare 3–4 small-sided designer games — Games you can use at any point during the lesson
  3. Write 5–6 key questions — Related to your outcome (tactical, technical, strategic)
  4. List task constraints you can modify — Ways to change the game's focus or difficulty on the fly

For me, a lesson plan becomes — rather than step-by-step — we go in and we have an overall outcome. I'll have a list of three or four small-sided games. I'll have half a dozen questions written out. And then I'll have some task constraints. That's my lesson. That's a perfect nonlinear lesson plan right there.

Ray

The Teaching Cycle

During the lesson, the cycle is beautifully simple:

  1. Play a short, sharp small-sided game (90 seconds to 2 minutes)
  2. Stop for a 60-second break — ask 2–3 key questions
  3. Replay the game and observe changes
  4. Repeat until it's time to modify a task constraint
  5. Introduce a new constraint and repeat the cycle

Ray emphasises keeping games short and intense. Students should be puffing when you bring them in. And the questioning breaks serve double duty — they provide recovery time and learning time.

For students not actively playing (perhaps a fifth team in rotation), Ray suggests having structured observation questions on a whiteboard. When those students come on to play, they're already ahead because they've been watching and thinking. Observation is a powerful learning tool.

Putting It All Together: An Invasion Games Example

Ray walks through a complete example focused on keeping possession of the ball in invasion games. The sequence includes multiple designer games — all targeting the same outcome:

Throughout all of these games, the same core questions recur:

Task constraints can be added at any point: "You can't run with the ball now" makes the game harder. "Let students choose their own implement — Frisbee, large ball, rubber chicken, rugby ball" adds variability and fun.

The beauty of this approach is that the same questions and outcomes thread through multiple different games. Students start connecting the dots — and that transfer across games is where deep learning happens.

Key Takeaways

Watch the Full Session Free on ConnectedPE

This blog post covers the key ideas, but Ray's full 60-minute session goes much deeper — with live audience interaction, detailed game examples, specific task constraint lists, and a Q&A session where he answers teachers' real-world implementation questions.

The course is completely free in the ConnectedPE members area. Sign up or log in to watch the full session, access the presentation materials, and earn a professional development certificate when you complete it.

👉 Watch the full course and earn your certificate →

About Ray

Ray is an Australian game-based learning specialist and the founder of PD4PE, an online professional development platform for PE teachers. He has been presenting on Game Sense since 1999 — over 25 years of evolving practice. Ray co-authored a comprehensive Game Sense textbook with Michael Spittle (Victoria University) that includes six complete unit plans, nearly 50 small-sided designer games, structured question banks, and assessment ideas. He lectures at Federation University and regularly works with schools to develop their games teaching pedagogy. Connect with Ray via his PD4PE platform or on LinkedIn.

Tags: Game Sense, TGfU, Physical Education, Teaching Games, Questioning Strategies, Professional Development, Pedagogy