Why so negative?

[Pud2]

In the papers this morning:

"Sir Michael Wilshaw has pledged to toughen penalties against schools who fail to provide adequate careers advice for pupils".

Why are we in such a culture of punishment rather than recognition of all the positives? It's not the way to motivate the workforce. No wonder teachers are deserting the profession.

Completely agree! (with you, I mean OP, not SMW )
As a teacher I find positive reinforcement far more effective than threat of punishment.

I find the disjunction between the positivity that is supposed to be the ethos in the classroom and the punitive negativity of the discourse around the practitioners of education absolutely baffling.
It's actually a striking discordance. Why? Just why?

My DH (an accountant) can rant at length and with great passion about the way the teaching profession is unable to put into practice what it preaches! If our whole ethos is supposed to be about encouraging and supporting the children, why on earth aren't teachers treated in the same way??

I got a letter from ds's school careers service - 'ds is in Yr 7 and does not know what he wants to do.' No shit Sherlock - a box ticked for outstanding

It really worries me that it is clearly a profession in crisis yet nobody has the courage to stand back and really look at what is happening. We need to go right back to basics and remove all this unnecessary pressure. Unfortunately it's too closely linked to the political agendas.

Just take a look across the water in Ireland where teachers have a far better work life balance and Ireland outstrip us in the league tables.

It's all part of the blame culture we have nowadays :(

They closed down Connexions, our careers advisor now only gets to give advice to students who look like they will be NEETs.

So Wilshaw, show us the money.

ds looks like a NEET (weeps)

Connexions did good work here in London. I remember it being cut right back - did it actually go?

God, I remember Connexions.

Wilshaw is like the Pharaoh making the Israelites make bricks without straw, with added fifty lashes for not getting right.

Tosser.

I just adore the way that teachers are supposed to facilitate active learning, but then have to sit through hours of dreary sage-on-a-stage, death-by-PowerPoint Inset training etc....

We had a fantastic programme called AimHigher, getting unlikely students into Higher Education. It really worked too. So of course it was axed.