(Wo)monster meets Monster: The landscape of PETE in England, a critical autoethnographic reflection

The landscape of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) in England is one of precarity. We are in a national teaching shortage and consequently the recruitment and retention of trainee teachers is challenging. Teacher educators also teach inten-sively and have to balance teaching with school visits to students on practicum. As a consequence, excessive workload is a notable and highly reported issue with many teacher educators becoming burnt out. The turbulence of the governmental Market Review in 2022 and the need for providers to gain reaccreditation have increased pressures, enjoyment and job security for many across the teacher education sector and PETE has not been exempt from this impact. Under the guise of the government Market Review many providers were questioned about the quality, quantity, and type of provision they offer to trainee teachers with a looming cull of teacher edu-cation providers. As a result, the landscape has been bleak and harsh, something akin to a monster, sharing monstrous ideas. This presentation will discuss the mon-strous landscape and how the monster tames its pets [teacher educators and trainee teachers] through policy. Drawing upon data from a five-year critical autoethnog-raphy framed and analysed through the lens of feminist poststructuralism, I, a teacher educator in PETE, position myself as a (wo)monster, a woman navigating several co-constructed identities while searching for spaces of agency and empow-erment (Shelton et al., 2019). I draw upon several critical moments throughout the five-year critical autoethnography where I deconstruct several intra-related critical incidents that will be shared with the audience. As an example, teaching on the ‘In-tensive Training and Practice’ curriculum week, a new development for the PETE course since the market review process. The monitoring of consistency and surveillance surrounding this week became a space where the (wo)monster ap-peared. From this position I identified that teacher education is very much the mon-ster, and I am very much the monster’s pet. However, the monster’s pet doesn’t always have to do what the monster dictates. Insights derived from the experience of being a (wo)monster are shared throughout the presentation around imagining new ways of being and wreaking havoc. Attendees may gain an insight into the workings of PETE in England, from a (wo)monster! Furthermore, in the circum-stances where monstrous landscapes continue to be created some predictions for the future are shared if monstrous landscapes continue in PETE programmes. Ref-erences: Shelton, S. A., Guyotte, K. W., & Flint, M. A. (2019). (Wo) monstrous sutur-ing: Woman doctoral students cutting together/apart. Reconceptualizing educa-tional research methodology, 10(2-3), 112-146.