Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes

Tune In: Invasion sports

15 minutes

Find Out: Teamwork tactics

25 minutes

Take Action: Building teamwork skills

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

explore tactics of invasion sports
use data to measure their success.

Success criteria

Students can:

demonstrate and apply different tactics in invasion sports
reflect on the effectiveness of these tactics using data to support their interpretation.

Preparation:

This is a split lesson, with the ‘Tune In’ and ‘Find Out’ phases happening first. Students start by exploring tactics of invasion sports before creating a plan to improve their teamwork strategies. They then enact their plan over a period of time. This could be 4 weeks or a whole term, depending on what suits you! Students will apply their mathematical skills to measure their journey.

Tune In: Invasion sports

Step 1

Select a sport for your students to play from the list:

basketball 3x3
hockey
netball
rugby

Facilitate students playing the chosen sport for a set period of time (eg 5 or 10 minutes). While the students are playing, keep track of the following:

number of clean passes from player to player
number of intercepts
the score

Don’t tell the students you are tracking this data!

Step 2

On a whiteboard, write the question ‘What is a team?’. Invite students to raise their hands to share their responses and record these on the whiteboard.

Next, invite your students to consider why we play sports as a team rather than individually, and ask them to share their thoughts with the class. This is a broad question where your students will likely develop interesting answers.

Suggested student responses:

It’s fun to play with your friends and be together.
We can support each other and train together.
We’re better players together as a team than by ourselves.
A good team is stronger than any individual player.

Find Out: Teamwork tactics

Step 1

Watch the following videos with your class from Australian teams competing in the Commonwealth Games. As we watch each clip, we'll look for each team's strategies to be effective in the game.

Show your students the following clips:

After each clip, pause and discuss the tactics you see in the clips with your students by displaying the tactic list:

Tactic	This looks like…
applying pressure	playing your position, moving to create options
attacking and defending	keeping formation, using set plays, pushing advantage, dropping back to cover
controlling the pace	slowing the game down, letting teammates get into position, pushing advantage
creating and moving into space	drawing the opposition out of position, moving on the court/pitch
holding possession	using fast passes to keep position, maintaining possession while your team moves into position, passing back
positioning	playing in position, everyone has a role
supporting the ball carrier	moving in formation, using the body to protect the ball carrier
teamwork skills	calling, celebrating together, showing sportsmanship

Step 2

Explain to students that today, while they were playing, you recorded the number of clean passes and intercepts they made. Lead a class discussion using the following prompts:

What tactics did you use in the game when making clean passes?
What tactics did you use when you made a successful intercept?
Does this improve our teamwork skills if we made more successful passes and intercepts in a game?

Step 3

Using the Line Graph Template, create a class graph to track the number of successful passes, and another to track the number of successful intercepts. Ask the students to set a goal for where they want to be at the end of their program, and make sure the graph encompasses that (and a bit beyond!).

Take Action: Building teamwork skills

Step 1

It is time to create a plan to improve our teamwork skills. Using the Weekly Planner, have the students build a training plan to strengthen their teamwork. They might like to use the Team Skills Card Deck to choose some activities to help structure their week.

Step 2

Have students enact their plan. Once a week, re-play their chosen sport and record the number of successful passes, intercepts, and scores. Each week, add the data to your line graph. As a class, discuss which tactics they felt they were using successfully and which they needed to improve. They can revisit their weekly training plan to focus on the tactics they need to develop.

Numeracy extension: Students have tracked their data on a line graph through this project. Once you have the data, you might like to apply their mathematical skills to the following questions:

Calculate the percentage of improvement in the number of successful passes.
Calculate the percentage of improvement in the number of successful intercepts.
Was there a correlation between the rate of improvement of your successful passes and your successful intercepts?
Was there a correlation between the number of goals scored and the improvement of team skills?
Were your results what you expected? Explain why.

Reflection

At the start of this project, students were asked to reflect on what a team is. Instruct students to write a new answer to that question.

Invite students to reflect on why Australian athletes competing in the Commonwealth Games are called ‘Team Australia’. Guide students in discussing why we refer to this as a ‘team’ despite all athletes playing different sports.

Strategy in Action: Team Games

Go to

Summary

Lesson guides and printables

In this lesson