7yo inattentive at school - depressed?

[buzzybee]

My 7yo DD is currently trying to get her head around a recent announcement by her father (who currently shares her custody with me 50:50) that he and her stepmother and halfbrother are going to move to the UK next year so she will live full time with me and rarely see him (we live in NZ).
Today I received this email from her teacher:
"I am writing to you because you have asked me to keep you posted on Isobel and how she is coping at school. To be honest, I am a little concerned because she is really finding it hard to focus and is producing very little work. She keeps telling me that she just wants to read and basically that?s all she does at the moment. I gave her a target of writing three sentences about her weekend (which she is more than capable of) and she barely wrote one all morning. This is becoming quite typical of her and I find her just doodling, and making holes in her book with her pencil. I have also noticed that she is quite often walking around in circles talking/ humming to herself?"

My question is how to separate out what could possibly be signs of depression from what may simply be signs of boredom? Any views? She seems pretty much normal when she's at home with me and as you can imagine I've been looking out for signs of stress at home following on from his announcement.

Having said that it is unusual for her to be doing quite so much reading as in the past she's always been keen to get outside and play whereas now I understand she spends most lunch hours inside reading. She is a self-taught reader age 4 but has never been what I'd call a "big" reader up until now.

What can I suggest to the teacher?

I had the long awaited meeting with her teacher today and sadly it didn't make me feel any better. It sounds like much of the time she is just completely zoning out unless the teacher is literally hanging over her shoulder encouraging her to focus on her work. I also noticed at her swimming class today she just didn't even want to try new things, very hard to watch.
Her father has just said he will be leaving "early to mid next year". I'm guessing no later than May to avoid our winter but possibly earlier if he gets a job.
She did talk to him over the weekend and told him how she felt which was very brave oof her. I think she was desperately hoping he would say he'd changed his mind but instead just said things like "I'll still be your father and we can talk on Skype". Which I guess is something to hold on to.
I've decided to write a letter to his mother to try and enlist her help as DD will be staying with her (and him) for a week from 31 Dec to 8 Jan. At the very least she can reassure DD that she will still see her Nana etc hopefully! It's hard to know exactly what to write though.

Hi pipinjo, have had a recommendation for a child psychotherapist so might follow that up.
I guess other than that my main plan is to try and keep her as busy as possible over the school holidays (our summer hols so 6 weeks) so she doesn't dwell on things too much.
She also gets on well with her grandad so need to remember that there will still be some men in her life. He likes to play board games with her which is nice.
Now just need to find someone who will do a few more physical things with her at the local park etc as that's one of the things she really enjoys with her dad and I don't do much of - partly because its not really my thing but also its not so easy with a 2yo following along!
Yes letter to Nana needs to focus on how to get the best outcomes for DD, you're absolutely right about that.