I recall the interview with Ernie Merrick after the game where Riley McGree used the scorpion kick to get the goal, and he said the Riley had been practicing that kick at training for weeks. This reminded me of an interview I once heard with Peter Daikos, decribed often as a 'freakish' Collingwood AFL goal kicking star of the 1980s and early 1990s, where he discussed that his talent came from hard work, preparation and practice - his 'freakishness' was a practiced ability. Similarly, teammates of more recent  'freakish' AFL goal kicking star reveal his in-game actions to be th ..read more

 I am currently working on a few mental health education initiatives arsing from the Big Talks for Little People program for primary schools (see here). Big Talks for Little People is an innovative mental health education program empirically studied and found to make a significant difference in students self reported social emotional learning rating and in instances of bullying where the Schools Program has been run. One of the new initiatives is a mental health HPE program with ten lesson units of work for Year 2, Year 4 and Year 6 which will be trialled in Term2 of the Austral ..read more

The sport performance environment is characterised as complex and rich due to the nature, volume, and occurance of information available to a player. However, the player's perceptual and cogntive resources are limited, so all the available information is unable to be 'perecived and considered' by the player. Players can miss pertinent information (cues to some, affordances to others) due to selective looking (Neisser, 1979: see here), mis-directed attention or non-awarness.  Importantly, visual attention and visual perception are linked, although distinctive processes (Memmert, 2009). Per ..read more

This year I have had a lot of oppportunities to talk with sport clubs from grassroots community to semi-professional and professional levels and during sport coach education days (like level 2 coaching courses) about the idea of Play with Purpose to develop player game sense through a game-based coaching approach. This presentation from a session with a lacrosse club gives a good summary of what I talk about and demonstrate in these coach education sessions.  In 2024, I am hopeful of undertaking an empirical study of Play with Purpose with a sport club. I anticipate being able to advertis ..read more

I have been fortunate to be asked to provide several talks during 2023 on various areas of teaching physical education. Although my work is usually within the sphere of 'curriculum and pedagogy', being asked to talk about what the next ten years might hold for physical education teaching enabled me to consider some interesting questions in this presentation ..read more

I mapped out the model I call Play with Purpose for developing player game sense as people were telling me that the model I was discussing filled a missing 'piece' of information for them about the Game Sense approach- when, why or how to use 'other' teaching styles in a game based approach (GBA). GBA's are models like TGfU, Tactical Games, Games Competency Approach, Game Sense approach, etc. A GBA for games and sport teaching in physical education and sport coaching had been described often as 'discovery' or 'guided discovery' teaching. It was Brendan SueSee who initially challenged my thinki ..read more

 Youth sport retention is a critical issue for many reasons. Regular physical activity is essential for children's health and well-being. Sport can provide children with valuable life skills such as teamwork, discipline, and goal setting. Sport can help children develop a sense of belonging and identity. However, these things are not guaranteed simply by providing sport, and in this country sport drop out is pronounced during adolesence, and in particular for girls who drop out in greater numbers than boys. There are a number of factors that can contribute to youth sport dropout, and two ..read more

  If you haven't seen Sal Kahn TED talk, ‘How AI could save (not destroy) education’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJP5GqnTrNo I recommend it to you. In this video, Sal explains that while we have seen AI can help teachers with lesson planning, and we have seen teachers and systems worry that AI will do the 'work' of students for them, and therefore use of AI needs to monitored and controlled. However, Sal explains how AI can 'power up' student learning and why AI should be embraced when developed pedagogically. Benjamin Bloom 2 sigma study Sal references the 'famous' 2-sigma study ..read more

 Youth sport retention is a critical issue for many reasons. Regular physical activity is essential for children's health and well-being. Sport can provide children with valuable life skills such as teamwork, discipline, and goal setting. Sport can help children develop a sense of belonging and identity. However, these things are not guaranteed simply by providing sport, and in Australia as elsewhere, youth sport drop out is a concern, and in particular for girls who drop out in greater numbers than boys. There are a number of factors that can contribute to youth sport dropout, and two fa ..read more

 Physical Education teachers and sport coaches have in common the development of a curriculum (program of learning) and the method (pedagogy) to teach the content of the curriculum. This might be called 'educative purpose'. According to Schmoker (2011), research directs all involved in education to three elements that need to be in focus for educative purpose: 'What to teach?', 'How to teach it?' and 'Authentic literacy'. What to teach Physical education programs package the content, pacing, spacing and progression of learning into a design called a curriculum. Sport programs similar pack ..read more