Shy 4 (almost 5) year old - an issue?

[Lilpickle08]

Hello

My daughter is 5 in a couple of weeks and has just started school. The transition to school from nursery has been fine really, although she does tend to stick with the same 1 or 2 children in her class (girls she already knew from nursery). However when I enquired about how she was getting on, her teacher told me she just 'followed' these children around and basically made me feel as if it was a bit of an issue.

She has always been quite shy and does struggle socially - particularly when there are lots of children present. I have tried to encourage play dates etc, and have noticed her invitations back dwindling. I've also noticed that she prefers to play on her own than play with her friends and I get the impression they don't want to invite her round anymore for that reason. Fair enough I suppose - but then how is she going to learn to interact if I don't encourage her seeing her friends?

It's making me feel sad as I have always struggled and hate the fact I am quite introverted - although I do make lots of effort for people not to notice the fact!

She does a dance class and we'll be starting another class soon as I feel that that will help her socially as well. I'm not sure what else I can do really.

Any ideas / thoughts? Will she always be this 'shy'? - I hate labelling her shy incidentally, but everyone else seems to.

Aside from this she is a lovely, bright, funny and caring little girl. I think I worry because I don't want her to go through some of the stuff I did :-(