INTO is organising a Youth conference for young teachers. It is for teachers who have graduated since 2000. It will be held in the Slieve Donard Hotel, Newcastle on Friday 7th and Saturday 8th November 2008 commencing at 5pm on Friday, closing 2pm on Saturday.

The NITC salary claim for 2.45% is being processed by the Department of Education. Hope is fading that it will be paid in time to be in teachers’ September salaries, but at the latest it will be in the October salaries. However inflation is running at 5% and the increase represents yet another cut in teachers’ wages.

INTO has called for a root and branch reappraisal of LMS to make school funding, particularly funding for primary schools more equitable

Congratulations to the over 3000 teachers who participated in the RTU Summer School.

OECD has published ‘Improving School Leadership: Policy and Practice. RTU made an input to this OECD activity [www.oecd.org/edu/schoolleadership]
It makes important recommendations on school leadership responsibilities and distributing school leadership.

The NASUWT General Secretary has spoken a lot of hooey about Teaching Allowances being ‘cheap’ TLRs.

If you retire after the 31 March 2009 your average salary will be either:

* The salaries for the last 10 years increased to current day value using the Retail Price Index. The average of the best consecutive 3 years re-valued salaries in those 10 calendar years is used.

* The pensionable salary received in the last 12 months before the date of retirement.