Wellington, March 16 NZPA - A 48-year-old woman is due in Invercargill District Court on Friday to face an assault charge after she was allegedly involved in a confrontation at a rural school yesterday.

Police said they were called to Central Southland Rural Primary School in Drummond, about 50km from Invercargill, at 8.50am as principal Christine Munro was confronted by the woman.

Both police and school staff were reluctant to say what led to the arrest.

"As a principal things crop up every day that you have to deal with and some are harder to deal with than others," Mrs Munro told the Southland Times.

The arrested woman told the newspaper she planned to defend the charge, saying she had gone to the school to speak with Mrs Munro about a bullying letter, which she said was slipped into her 10-year-old daughter's desk last week.

She had pulled her daughter from the school after the incident, she said.

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