Parents at a Perth Catholic school have claimed their kids were shocked and confused when one of their six-year-old friends, who was a boy last year, arrived on the first day of school as a girl.

Some parents said they were dismayed the school failed to warn them so they could talk to their children about why the Year 1 student was wearing a girl’s uniform dress with long hair tied back in a pony tail.

One mother said she found the way the school had dealt with a sensitive topic “quite confronting”.

“Nobody was informed,” she said.

“The little boy from the previous year just came back in a dress.

“It presented a conversation that I think is just not appropriate for five and six-year-olds.”

The principal of the southern suburbs primary school, which The Weekend West has chosen not to name, called a meeting for Year 1 parents but has not spoken about the issue to the wider school community.

Some parents said six was too young for a child to be changing their gender. And they wanted to know what would happen with toilets, change rooms and swimming lessons.

One parent said while she sympathised with the Year 1 student and had compassion for their family, she believed the principal should not have accepted such a controversial situation without parent consultation.

Another mother, who has a child in the Year 1 class, said parents were also struggling to reconcile their Catholic values and moral beliefs with providing support for transgender students.

LJ Goody Bioethics Centre director the Rev. Dr Joseph Parkinson, who provides advice to Catholic schools across Australia on gender dysphoria — the distress a person experiences if their gender identity differs from their biological sex — said the principal rang him about the Year 1 student after the school year started.

“I think the principal has acted very professionally,” he said.

Dr Parkinson said more schools were dealing with gender dysphoria, but he was sceptical that a six-year-old would have it. He could not recall being consulted about a child as young as six previously.

“Gender variance in little children is not unusual and is not particularly serious and it usually just goes away,” he said. “Six is not unusually young for kids to cross-dress. It normally passes and the literature says that almost none of these kids are transgender.”

A spokeswoman for Catholic Education WA said it did not comment on individual students.

She said Catholic schools had a focus on open conversation with parents, students and staff to ensure mutual respect and understanding for all.