TEACHING assistants have held a mass protest against changes to their contracts ahead of taking strike action next month.

Between 300 and 400 teaching assistants gathered outside County Hall in Durham City today (Friday) to protest against being moved to term-time only contracts, which they say will result in many of them losing nearly a quarter of their pay.

Durham County Council, which employs 2,700 teaching assistants, says it has to make the changes because of the escalating risk of equal pay claims from other staff, which it says could cost the authority millions.

Today's rally came at the end of a week of action by the workers, who have been taking shifts to man a "silent protest" outside County Hall.

Teaching assistant Jan Clymo said: “It’s been fantastic – it was an amazing turnout by teaching assistants and the public support has been brilliant.

“It has helped to buoy us up. Since we decided to strike a lot of people have been feeling low and down so a rally like this is what they needed.

“We’ve had people turning up with refreshments, passers-by giving donations and councillors coming out to have a chat.”

Teaching assistants are calling for the council to regrade their positions to mitigate for the loss caused by changing their contracts.

Head of resources John Hewitt said: "This hasn’t been about saving money for the council. It’s all about risk to the council."

He added: "This is nothing about us not valuing teaching assistants - we value all of our staff. We do value teaching assistants. We have been looking at this for 12 months to come up with a way of mitigating any reduction.

“We feel we have done a lot in terms of mitigating the impact on staff. We can’t just give everyone a pay rise."

He added that the council had been working with schools to increase their hours to minimise salary losses.

A date for strike action by members of trade unions Unison and ATL is expected to be announced next week.

Teaching assistant Megan Charlton said: “There’s a lot of support for strike action. We know it won’t be easy and people will be losing money but they will be losing a lot more if we lose.

“We know it will have a big impact on families and children in schools but the long term impact would be much greater.”

Head of education Caroline O'Neill said: "Our school leaders are committed to the education of children just as the council is.

"For that reason they will do everything they can to maintain a strong focus and education of all children."

The authority has faced more than 5,500 equal pay claims since it was created in 2009.