STAFF at a Southampton school are set to vote on possible strike action, union chiefs have revealed.

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) at Valentine Primary School will take part in a ballot on whether to strike over proposed job losses.

Union chiefs say the school has been told by Southampton City Council that it needs to cut almost a million pounds from its staffing budget over the next three to five years.

The NEU says headteacher Liz Filer has issued proposals to cut 2.2 full-time equivalent teacher posts and make significant reductions to support staff.

James Ellis, National Education Union regional officer said: “Valentine Primary finds itself in this predicament because of the school funding crisis caused by the government, but this has been compounded by poor decisions by the city council.

“Now we have received proposals to make our members redundant and bring in agency staff which are simply unacceptable.

"The cuts proposed for support staff will cause an unacceptable increase in workload for our members.”

Peter Badham, National Education Union secretary for Southampton, said: “The National Education Union has been campaigning about the lack of adequate funding for schools for the last two years, it has now reached crunch level.

“It has to be wrong where staff jobs go in the name of saving, when the education of our pupils will suffer as a direct result.

"We hope that parents will see this action as supportive of their children’s education.”

James Ellis, National Education Union regional officer continued: “Strike action is always a last resort and we sincerely hope it won’t come to that.

“We will continue to hold discussions with the school and the council but we are clear there must be no compulsory redundancies and urgent additional help from the council.”

The strike ballot will run from February 4 to February 23.

Parents, Staff and NEU officers are also set to meet with Southampton City Council's education chief Darren Paffey at the Civic Centre on February 12.

The announcement comes following a Christmas plea by Ms Filer, who asked parents to donate basic equipment to boost their dwindling supplies.

School resource company Twinkl - who are based more than 200 miles away in Sheffield - answered the plea for help and delivered 5,030 items to the school.

The Echo has contacted Valentine Primary School and councillor Darren Paffey for a comment.