same-sex friendships discouraged-labelled as 'harmful gender norm'

We are from Melbourne. We have a daughter in grade 1. She was very excited to go into a new school year and expected to be able to sit next to some of her best friends- and as you'd expect, most of them are also girls.

Our daughter came home from school devastated because the teacher told her she is no longer allowed to sit next to her girl friend- not at the desk or on the mat.

The teacher thinks same sex friendships are just 'learned harmful gender norms' and allocates the seating-on purpose- to challenge those 'norms'.

So now our daughter- who was happy in her learning environment and enjoying an innocent friendship with another girl, has a boy either side of her whether seated at a desk or on the floor- and is feeling lonely and unhappy.