Schools face closure tomorrow as teaching assistants resume strike action over pay.

Pupils at infant, primary and junior schools across Brighton and Hove face being sent home as staff march out of classrooms.

Teaching assistants are mounting their third day of industrial action as the council and unions fail to reach a deal.

The first 48-hour strike last month shut half the city's primary schools with 8,000 children sent home.

Most special schools cancelled all classes and care for their children, some with severe learning difficulties, over the two days.

Union members will meet during the strike tomorrow to discuss plans to escalate the action.

They have threatened to call selected schools out for weeks on end in an attempt to break the deadlock.

A fourth day of action has already been planned for Tuesday, January 6, with no end in sight.

Brighton and Hove City Council confirmed no new offer had been made and repeated its call to bring the row to the Acas conciliation service.

The council brought in new grades for teaching assistants which should also mean higher rates of pay.

But at the same time, officers threatened to cut the number of weeks paid from 52 for special schools to 45 each year.

Alex Knutsen, Unison branch chairman, criticised the council for not bringing the dispute to a close before Christmas.

He said: "The council has made no attempt to broker a new deal and there has been no progress in the past week.

"We certainly hoped there would be some formal or informal move - we have offered to discuss the paid weeks issue at a later date."

Finance councillor Simon Burgess has two children at school who will have to stay home for the day.

The Labour member claimed the council simply could not afford to meet the demands of the teaching assistants.

He said: "My children are young enough to enjoy an extra day off at the end of the week.

"But in the longer term it's worrying for parents because this will start to affect their education.

"The trouble with teaching assistants is any increase in pay will mean a year-on-year expenditure.

"It's possible to find the buy-out money of £400,000 but schools do not want to spend more on teaching assistants every year, given the size of their budgets."

As the dispute heats up, the council appeared to contradict earlier claims that no schools pay the full 52 weeks demanded by teaching assistants.

It confirmed that Nottinghamshire does offer wages for the full year despite the fact the classroom staff only work during term time.

Council officers also confirmed that just eight teaching assistants will earn the highest rate of £21,000 pro rata quoted in letters to parents.

The weeks and wages deal offered by the council would leave nine out of every ten strikers better off, according to the council.

At the same time, 44 per cent of teaching assistants actually voted in favour of the industrial action.