A very rude deputy head teacher - what would you do?

[Prezzie]

I had to take my child for an interview at a new school. On meeting us for the first time, the deputy head's first words to my child were "Well, is this your mother or just some woman you have dragged in from the street?" I was so shocked and taken aback at being addressed in this way by someone I had never met before that I was not able to come out with an assertive/any answer. Throughout the interview I found her tone unpleasant and rude. I feel annoyed with myself for being so polite and passive but I was so nonplussed at the time, I couldn't think what to do for the best. Should I speak to her again and say how shocked I was at my child and I being treated in such a discourteous manner as visitors to the school? I don't want to make problems for my child in a new school but I am still upset at being treated in such a rude way. What would you do? Any advice, smart answers etc you could give me would be a great support.

Please tell me you declined the opportunity to send your child to this school...

Was she trying to engage your child in conversation? Maybe she just has a slightly different sense of humour? But if the rest of the conversation didn't go well, that's a different matter

hahah.. i think funny

I suspect that it was an attempt to break the ice with your child, that has gone horribly wrong.
The temptation is to put it down to one of those things, but when in your post you say you were going into the school for an interview, I do begin to worry. Schools are absolutely not allowed to interview either parents or children in relation to admission to the school.
If you have made the decision to send your child to the school then I would be tempted to just store the incident away and see what happens. Hopefully they turn out to the best person on the staff but if you subsequently have further issues with them then you need to make a formal written complaint to the head teacher.

Are you foreign? This is fairly typical brusque British humour.

I would think it's an independent.

It sounds like it was meant to be a joke.

There are also people in my area of North West who have this sense of humour. It sounds to me like she was trying to get a smile from the child, or get her to reply something as witty, or just "this is my mummy". I think its quite funny and personally would have smiled/laughed. I certainly wouldn't complain. At least she shows this side rather than a stuffy stuck up type.

I would have taken it as a joke

As potatoprints says, that's quite a Northern humour. My DH is Aussie and took AGES to get used to people taking the mick out of him in what seemed to him to be a rude fashion.

He STILL mistakes my humour for meanness!

I would just think it was their sense of humour and not dwell on it. Or did they say other stuff at your meeting?

Good grief some people are easily offended. This sounds like something I would say - definitely a joke.

I think that's quite sweet - engaging your child with a joke, rather than all stuffy and formal.

We obviously have different senses of humour.

My cousin is married to a girl from a different part of the country and she just doesn't get the humour in these parts. In fact she looks positively uncomfortable around our family who are far from crass, rude or insensitive people - it just must be that, OP, I'm sure she meant to help your dc to relax.

It is a state secondary school. You could be right, Admission, about the attempt at humour gone horribly wrong. It's just that half way through the interview she said that she was really annoyed that the local authority had granted a place to my child without going through the proper procedures. Towards the end of the interview she then said that she would admit my child to the school. Btw, no, I am not foreign and she isn't from a different culture but I just didn't like her sense of humour.