Heart ache at school

My eldest daughter came home from school today in a foul mood. She was playing horrid games with her sisters, until I told her that if she couldn't play nicely, that she could go upstairs and leave the garden for a while. She stomped off in a fury, but later, when the two little ones were happily engaged on the swings together, I coaxed her into the kitchen and asked her what on earth was the matter. 

To start with, true to form, she admitted nothing. But then it all came out. Her favourite 'girl' friend in class has moved house to Astana. You may think it is strange that we did not already know this, but bear in mind that at the beginning of last year, she started in her school which was brand new, and went into a class of 22 children of whom only three other boys spoke fluent English, the rest of the class all spoke Russian and many of them were already friends from before. She was the only girl who did not speak Russian. Over the course of the year, she became firm friends with the English-speaking boys, and good friends with some of the girls but not to the extent of more than going to each others birthday parties along with everyone else, even though break times they played together a lot. Even though I tried to encourage it, she did not feel confident enough to ask them over for a play at her house and I didn't force it. 

However, all summer she has been talking about this one friend, who she really liked, and who she was really looking forward to seeing again after the school holiday. And when she came back to school, the girl's name was up on the cupboard but she was absent and so my daughter just assumed she was coming back to school late. But the name has since been taken down and her teacher told them today that she was not coming back. 

And eldest daughter is gutted. I am gutted for her. She is so good and has made such a good effort in fitting in to her school, getting on with everything without complaining and in very good humour. Having her sobbing on my lap (she is quite big now and doesn't do that very often) made my heart ache for her. Any suggestions what to do? I asked if she wanted to invite some of the remaining girls around for tea and a play, and she may like to do that, so perhaps I will organise for next week.