Skills of the Past Year Levels Years 3–4 Activity Overview the Kicking Style in Australian Football Has Evolved Over Time

Home , Drop kick, Kick (football), Place kick

Key Learning Area Health and Physical Education Skills of the past Year levels Years 3–4 Activity overview The kicking style in Australian football has evolved over time. Contemporary players predominantly use one type of kick: the drop punt. During the early years of Australian football, players could be seen using a variety of kicking styles including the drop kick, stab pass, flat punt, torpedo or, when that extra bit of accuracy was required when kicking for goal, the place kick. Students will engage in a series of activities designed to introduce them to these rarely used skills. As a way of understanding why the Australian football kicking style has evolved, students will engage in an experiment designed to test their own goal-kicking accuracy using a drop punt and a place kick.

Time required Approximately 120 minutes

Materials • Worksheet 1: Australian football skills of the past • Worksheet 2: How Australian football has changed from the past • One beanbag 10 cm x 20 cm, one football and two marker cones (for goals) per group (four to five students) • Images in Resources section on the AFL CD-ROM

Preparation • Activity 1 is to be conducted in a large, flat, open space that has a non-slip surface (for example in a gym or on a grass surface). • Provide one copy of Worksheets 1 and 2 per student. Skills of the past

Activity 1 1. Engage students in a discussion about how things change over time. Ask whether any students have heard an older person in their family say, ‘Well, things were different in my day.’ Have a few students recall some examples older family members have used to explain how things were different in the past. 2. Call on a few volunteers to provide examples of how ‘things’ are different today compared with 150 years ago for each of the following categories: • transport (for example, horse and buggy, car) • housing (for example, small, single-storey homes, larger double-storey homes) • shops (for example, small single purpose shops such as a butcher, large supermarkets) • games children play (for example, hop-scotch, computer games). 3. Prompt students to think about whether the way Australian football is played has changed over the past 150 years. Encourage students to offer examples of how things might have changed for each of the following categories: • when games are played (for example, day of the week, time of day, time of year) • the names of teams that play in the Australian Football League (for example, Footscray – Western Bulldogs) • where games are played (for example, a few Australian states, throughout the world) • the number of umpires involved in each Australian Football League game (for example, field umpires, boundary umpires, goal umpires) • the rules (for example, players can now carry the ball 15 metres without touching it to the ground before they are penalised. In the past it was 10 metres, and before that 10 yards. When the game first started the captains of each team awarded the free kicks, then one central umpire was introduced. Now there are 3 umpires.). 4. Gather the class together and take students to the place where they will undertake the kicking style experiment. 5. Demonstrate to students (or ask a capable student to demonstrate) how to kick a football using a drop punt kicking style. • Ask students to offer examples of when this kicking style is used in a game (for example, in almost every situation – kicking for distance, goal or to another player). Skills of the past

© 2008 Australian Football League 6. Ask students if they know of a type of kick that was used in the past when kicking for goal. (place kick) • Challenge students to name two other sports in which a place kick is used (for example, Rugby Union; American football, or gridiron; soccer). 7. Demonstrate to students (or ask a capable student to demonstrate) how to perform a place kick. Once you are sure that students have an understanding of how a place kick is performed, show students how to set up their equipment to undertake their experiment. • About 10 to 30 metres (depending on student age) from where the class is standing, place two marker cones approximately 7 metres apart to create an Australian football goal. • Near where the class is, place a beanbag on the ground and balance a football upright on the beanbag. • Ask a student to stand a few metres from the football, run in and kick it towards the goal. 8. Organise students into groups of four or five students. • Give each group one football, one beanbag and two marker cones. • Inform students that they are to undertake an experiment to investigate the goal-kicking accuracy for both a drop punt and a place kick. • Each person in their group is to have five place kicks and five drop punts at the goal. • Tell students that on each occasion a student kicks a goal using either a place kick or a drop punt, the group is to add a goal (score) to the tally for that kicking style. • Encourage students to choose an appropriate distance from goal for them: not too far or too close. • Ensure that each student performs each of his or her ten kicks from the same distance from goal. Other students may choose the distance from goal that will best suit them. • Allow students ten minutes practice time in which to develop their kicking style using either the place kick or the drop punt. Where appropriate, provide encouragement and advice to students to aid their development. • Tell students to undertake their experiment, reminding them to keep a tally of each goal scored using each kicking style for the group. Skills of the past

© 2008 Australian Football League 9. Regroup students and ask each group the results of their experiment. • Which kicking style scored the most goals? • Ask students for comments on the two kicking styles, prompting them to nominate a preferred kicking style and to offer reasons. • Challenge the students to provide a few examples of how the skills used in Australian football have changed over the past 100 years. Students may need to be prompted, as they may never have seen some of the traditional skills. • Prompt students to think about, for example: • other ways the ball is kicked (for example, the drop kick and stab pass are rarely used in modern Australian football while the torpedo is used infrequently) • how often the ball is handballed (the ball is frequently handballed in each game whereas in the past it was handballed less frequently) • the way players mark (catch) the ball. 10. As an at-home activity with the help of family members, ask students to complete Worksheet 1: Australian football skills of the past prior to the next class on this topic.

Activity 2 1. Encourage students to think back to the lesson in which they undertook an experiment to investigate the effect on goal-kicking accuracy of different kicking styles. • Challenge the students to recall the name given to the kicking style whereby the football was kicked off the ground towards goal. (place kick). • Ask students for reports on the at-home activity during which they worked with other family members to list the football skills used in the past and the different names used to describe them. • Seek from a few students examples of football skills used in the past. List these skills on the board. • For each skill, ask for examples of the different names by which the skill was known (for example, the drop kick was also called a ‘droppy’). List these names on the board. Skills of the past

© 2008 Australian Football League 2. Organise students into groups of four or five and provide each student with a copy of Worksheet 2: How Australian football has changed from the past. • Ask students to work in their groups to list examples related to Australian football of the way we do things today compared to how people did things in the past. Prompt students to think about these categories: • watching an Australian Football League game • listening to an Australian Football League game • supporting an Australian Football League club. • To conclude the activity, regroup students and ask for reports from a few groups on changes to the ways in which people watch, listen to and support Australian football.

Assessment ideas • Completion of Worksheet 1: Australian football skills of the past • Completion of Worksheet 2: How Australian football has changed from the past • Students could report on their findings after completing the worksheets. Reports could be oral, as a poster or PowerPoint™ presentation, or written. • Contribution to the group experiment and reporting. Optional • As an at-home activity with the help of family members, ask students to: • use the local library, Internet or family archives to search for images of past and present Australian football players performing skills • create a poster using images to depict the evolution of Australian football skills.

Optional extension • As an at-home activity with the help of family members or as a task using the resources available in the library, ask students to: • find three other sports in which players use skills similar to the skills used by Australian football players of the past or present (for example, a place kick in American football) • use the Internet to research how important the skills are compared with their importance for Australian football • provide a report of their findings in an appropriate presentation format (oral, poster, PowerPoint™ or written). Skills of the past

Name: ______

What to do Step 1 List Australian football skills that were used in the past but are not often used in games at present. Step 2 Where possible, list other names by which each of the skills of the past was known.

Australian football skills of the past

List the skills in this column: List other names by which these skills 1 Place kick were known:

2 Drop kick

Useful links http://afl.com.au (See AFL info sheets, visit club websites to search for information about club and player history) http://www.google.com.au (Search for history of Australian football) Skills of the past

Name: ______

What to do List up to three ideas for each statement in columns 1 and 2.

How people watch, listen to and support Australian football today and in the past

Column 1: Today Column 2: In the past Today, people watch Australian football by: In the past, people watched Australian football by:

Today, people listen to Australian football by: In the past, people listened to Australian football by:

Today, people support an Australian football In the past, people supported an Australian club by: football club by: Skills of the past