Matthew Staples

Matthew is in the second year of a PhD at Leeds Beckett University. His research explores the commitment, opportunities, and the role identity plays for qualified Physical Education teachers with a disability and/or impairment. These experiences will be presented as stories, responding to an absence of stories on PE teacher’s experiences with a disability or impairment. As well as acquiring the experiences of PE professionals, Matthew shall be writing himself into the research using autoethnography of his experiences as a qualified PE teacher with a mental health impairment.

Matthew aims to challenge schools that supports inclusion and equality for its pupils, but largely disregards inclusion for the teachers.

His motivations for conducting the research are experiences of discrimination and stigma attached to his mental health as a qualified PE teacher. His overall aim is for schools to give teachers with impairments the same level of opportunity as anyone else in the profession.

Outside of his research, Matthew is a keen golfer that plays off an 8 handicap. He also enjoys going to watch his favourite football team, Hull City on Saturday afternoons.