I'm scared to start sixth form?

I got into my chosen sixth form and I was really happy but I'm so nervous to start in September - I honestly find it so difficult to make friends. The friends I have now only started talking to me in year 9, so the first two years of secondary school I was pretty much on my own.

I'm going into my new sixth form without any of my friends (only one or two people from my school are going there) so I'm not going to be able to hang out with anyone I know for a while. Also the sixth form I'm going to is a part of a primary and secondary school, so the chances are most people will have known each other from a really young age and won't exactly be interested in making friends with a random person they don't know. I just have no clue how to talk to people and I'm so scared I'm gonna spend the next two years on my own - what should i do?

Also, I'm going to a private school sixth form on scholarship, and loads of people have told me that private school kids are really bitchy and I'll have a hard time fitting in because I came from a comprehensive school - is this true?

This is almost exactly my situation
I've also got a scholarship to go to a private school but I'm seriously reconsidering now just because of all the rumours attached to it and I'm extremely scared of making new friends
Are you doing the NCS programme?, my mum forced me to do it and said that it would be a sure way to prepare me for college and help me come out my shell a bit more
Maybe you should check it out

Hi, it's a shame that you're feeling this way but kind of ironic since I was just saying today how three years ago I was dead worried about going to sixth form but it ended up being the tow best years of my life.

First off, I can heavily relate. I went to a grammar school and all grammar school kids are known to be stuck up and bitchy. I also went to a different sixth form to all my friends, no one from my school went there.

But this ended up being a good thing. Like you, I was really shy when I left school to go to sixth form. I remember my English GCSE I couldn't even do this presentation I was so shy! But when I went to sixth form I realised something beneficial about no-one knowing me. Nobody knew that for the last 16 years I'd been so shy. I could reinvent myself here, without anybody actually knowing. So I pretended to be the person I always wanted to be. I pretended I was confident. My psychology teacher mad us do presentations every other lesson and I always volunteered on my table to be the speaker because I knew no one wanted to do it and the only way to get my confidence up was to force myself into doing it. And now I dont even think about presentation work in uni.

Second, the friends thing isn't so bad. I'll admit I found the first term particularly hard to make friends. Unlike you, my sixth form was a college sixth form so everybody there was new. However there were some groups of people who all came form the same secondary school, but really we were all new to each other. I'll tell you something my dad told me only the other day which is that sometimes it's good to force yourself to have to do something. My dad works as someone who fixes robots across different factories. This means he sees different people each week, but he told me that while he was worried about that when he started (aged 18) it ended up being a good thing. It forced him to have to talk to people, whether he was scared or not. He says because of that he now finds it easy to talk to anyone.

Sometimes going off on your own is the best thing you can do as it forces you to do gain hard life skills; confidence, talking to new people, etc. These are skills you need later in life; university, work. And as someone who went to sixth form completely alone, I can tell you it was the best decision I ever made. I was a completely different person when I left college to when I started.

It's natural to be scared of change in your life, especially when it's something like this. So don't think you shouldn't be scared about starting sixth form, you're going to a new place and obviously that's going to make you anxious. The only thing you can do is take it a day at a time when you start. Everyone wants to talk to each other, but everyone is scared to. So when you start and you're in a classroom and you have to sit next to someone, talk to them. Ask them their name, what subjects they're taking, if they're new. Small talk is hard, but it gets easier.

Slowly, but surely you'll find your group of friends. I found my friendship group through my sociology class after I sat with a girl in there who I recognised from my geography class. And now we're super close, I even spent the last weekend staying at her house.

My main suggestion is, just enjoy it. Sixth form is a great time, everyone always says how a levels are much better than GCSEs. Harder, perhaps. But a much more enjoyable time. Honestly, I'd give anything to go back three years and do it all over again.

I hope this advice/anecdote has helped you. Like I said, it's natural to be scared so don't panic that you are. Everyone is before sixth form, nobody admits it. You're going to have a blast, enjoy it while it lasts X