Teacher guidelines 1
Games to be played
Rounders, basketball, and soccer are suggestions. Teachers should consider the available equipment and space, and their own expertise when selecting games.
Organisation of equipment and playing space
Safe games practices
Safe game practices are the focus for this assessment task and teachers must always be aware of the students’ environment. Even though students will be required to make recommendations to improve each game, it is essential that they are never put into an unsafe environment. Any recommendations to improve game safety should be over and above standard safety procedures.
Physical environment
If activity space is suitable and safe, and enough equipment is available, it would be beneficial for the class to be divided into at least four teams, allowing at least two games to take place. This enables greater participation in the activity and discussion sessions. However, student safety is never to be compromised and therefore one game only may be appropriate.
The issue of adequate playing space may be one that can be developed as a topic for discussion with students, helping them to begin focusing on more specific safety issues.
Games organisation
For each game session:
- work out how many games could be played safely and then allocate student numbers as evenly as possible to the games
- divide each game group into two teams.
Equipment
Collect the equipment required for each specific game, for example:
Rounders:
- playing fields (appropriate surface)
- rounders bats
- tennis balls
- sets of bases the number of games to be played.
Basketball:
- courts
- basketballs the number of games to be played.
Soccer:
- playing fields (appropriate surface)
- balls
- marker cones for goals the number of games to be played.
Ensure equipment is in good working order.
Rules
At the beginning of each session a class discussion should be held to outline briefly the game rules for the particular game being played. Students might decide to make some initial rule modifications to increase participation.
- Always ensure that essential safety rules are enforced, for example, in softball the batters must wear helmets.
- Any recommendations by students to improve game safety should be over and above the standard safety procedures that have been ensured by the teacher.
Umpiring
If more than one game is to be played at any time, students may then be required to umpire the games with the teacher supervising the overall class group.
Teachers will need to make this decision based on student maturity, confidence and understanding of the game being played.
Allowing students the chance to umpire can provide invaluable opportunity to experience an understanding of group dynamics, fair play, decision-making and safety issues. However, teachers will need to make this decision based on each class group and must at all times be in total control of each game.
If allowing students to umpire, ensure they:
- have a clear understanding of the basic rules
- change umpires frequently to allow all students to participate in the game activities.
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