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1:1 online · all major exam boards

French tutoring, GCSE and A-Level

One-to-one French tutoring for GCSE and A-Level, taught live online. The reformed GCSE papers — dictation, read-aloud and the set vocabulary list — and the full A-Level course including the speaking exam.

Taught by Leah Burgess, who read French and Spanish at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and has taught in schools across Europe. Teaching is sold in blocks of 6, 12 or 24 teaching weeks.

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Mrs Leah Burgess in academic dress, Oxford

Mrs Leah Burgess. French & Spanish, St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Seven years and more of one-to-one teaching.

Our expertise

  • AQA
  • Pearson Edexcel
  • Eduqas
  • OCR
  • Cambridge IGCSE
  • AQA
  • Pearson Edexcel
  • Eduqas
  • OCR
  • Cambridge IGCSE

AQA, Pearson Edexcel, Eduqas, OCR and Cambridge Assessment International Education are the owners of their respective names and marks. They are shown here to say which specifications are taught. The Russet Collective is not affiliated with, approved by or endorsed by any awarding body.

GCSE · ages 11 to 16

A reformed paper, and only a second cohort has ever sat it.

The reformed GCSE French specifications were first taught in September 2024 and first sat in summer 2026. Anybody sitting them in 2027 is in the second cohort ever, and a great many of the people preparing them have never marked a real paper. Four things changed, and each rewards a different habit.

Dictation

Sentences read three times — whole, in sections, then whole again — and written down, with a small number of words deliberately from outside the vocabulary list. It tests the join between the sound of French and its spelling, which is exactly what gets skipped when a class is taught to recognise words on a page. It cannot be crammed and it improves steadily with weekly practice.

Read aloud

The speaking test now opens with reading a short passage out loud, then answering questions on it. A candidate who has only ever spoken from memorised material meets unfamiliar French in print for the first time in the examination room. Reading aloud weekly, to somebody who corrects the pronunciation as it happens, is the whole preparation — and almost nobody does it.

A prescribed vocabulary list

The examinable vocabulary is defined and published, with a handful of words placed deliberately outside it. Revision stops being open-ended word-learning and becomes a finite list to be genuinely known, plus a strategy for the words that are meant to be unfamiliar. Knowing which is which is most of the work.

Marks for being correct

Accuracy is rewarded over ambition. A simple sentence that is right beats a complicated one that is nearly right, and the drilled habit of forcing in a subjunctive to impress an examiner now costs marks. This is the change that most surprises strong students and the easiest to fix once somebody points at it.

The date that catches families out

The speaking examination is not in May. It sits in a window of up to five weeks during April and May, and the school chooses its own day inside it — so it is the first thing your child sits, and it is the piece that rewards months of steady practice. Revision plans built backwards from the written papers arrive at it three weeks late, every year. The full calendar is here.

Summer 2027

When it all happens

Series-level dates from JCQ, the same for every board. Individual paper dates are not published here: they differ by board, several 2027 timetables are still marked provisional, and a wrong paper date is worse than none.

  • April and May 2027 Speaking examinations, GCSE and A-Level Spanish and French
  • 10 May 2027 First examination on the JCQ common timetable
  • 18 June 2027 Final GCSE examination on the common timetable
  • 22 June 2027 Final GCE examination on the common timetable
  • 23 June 2027 Contingency day
  • 12 August 2027 A-Level results released to candidates
  • 19 August 2027 GCSE results released to candidates

Summer 2027, series-level dates only. Paper dates differ by board: AQA · Pearson Edexcel · Eduqas. The full calendar.

Boards taught

AQA (8652), Pearson Edexcel, Eduqas, OCR and Cambridge IGCSE French. The reform is common to the domestic boards; the vocabulary lists, the tiering and the exact form of each task are not, and Cambridge IGCSE sits outside the reform altogether with a structure of its own. Put the board on the application and the teaching is set to it from the first session.

A-Level · ages 16 to 18

Half of it is an essay subject taught in French.

This is where students who coasted through GCSE on vocabulary come unstuck. A-Level French asks for critical essays on a novel and a film, an argued position on social and political themes, and a spoken defence of research the candidate chose themselves. The language is the medium; the marks are for the argument.

Paper 1

Listening, reading and translation

Broadcast and journalistic material at native speed, comprehension across registers, and translation in both directions. Translation into French is where accuracy is worth the most and where a term of drilling shows immediately.

Paper 2

Written response to works

Essays in French on two studied works — two texts, or a text and a film such as Au revoir les enfants or La Haine. Marked as literary criticism, not as a language exercise, and this is the paper where an Oxford-trained reader is worth the most.

Paper 3

Speaking, and the research project

A discussion from a stimulus card, then a presentation and defence of an independent research project the student chose. It is not written coursework — it is spoken, and it is examined by being argued with.

The independent research project

Chosen by the student, and therefore usually chosen badly

A subject too broad to hold, or one with no argument in it, produces a presentation that cannot survive its first follow-up question. Picking a project narrow enough to defend, and rehearsing the questions an examiner will actually ask, is one of the highest-return pieces of work on the whole course — and it is done here in French, out loud, with somebody pushing back.

Essays are written in French and marked in French, in the margin, while you watch.

Boards taught

AQA (7652), Pearson Edexcel and Eduqas. The prescribed lists of texts and films differ, Edexcel and AQA weight the speaking component differently, and the research project is framed differently on each — so the board is confirmed before a work is chosen.

How a session happens

One to one, on Google Meet, and close enough to read the margin.

Distance learning usually means a face in a box and a shared document nobody is writing on. This does not. Leah shares her screen at full clarity and works on an iPad while you watch: the work is on the screen, and her pencil is moving across it in real time.

A student sees the sentence being crossed out, the arrow being drawn, the word being changed and the reason being written in the margin, in pencil, at the moment it happens — and can argue with any of it while the pencil is still on the page. It is the nearest thing to sitting beside somebody at the same desk, and for a good many students it is better, because the writing is the size of a screen rather than the size of a page.

  • Live pencil annotation, on a shared iPad

    Handwriting, arrows, underlining and marginal notes, drawn while you watch — in pencil for anything that is a judgement, and in highlighter where a passage needs picking out. Pencil on purpose: a mark in ink is a verdict, and a mark in pencil is a suggestion a student is invited to argue with.

  • Clear screen, clear sound

    Text is shared at full resolution rather than as a blurred video feed, and the audio is good enough to hear an accent properly — which for a language lesson is not a nicety.

  • Practice set every week, and marked by hand

    Questions chosen against the paper your child sits next, not against the syllabus in order. Leah marks them herself and returns them, so the next session starts from what actually went wrong rather than from where the textbook happens to be.

  • Nothing to install, and no travel

    A browser and a link. Sessions run in the late afternoon and evening, UK time, and time zones are worked around rather than complained about.

  • A parent may sit in, always

    Without asking and without giving a reason. Leah holds an Enhanced DBS certificate and is the designated safeguarding lead.

Walk through a session step by step — what happens before it, on the shared screen, and afterwards.

Fees

Sold in blocks, because a language answers to frequency.

Dictation, reading aloud and speaking improve by repetition at short intervals and by almost nothing else. A block buys the same slot every week for long enough that the ear actually changes. The longer the block, the less each week costs.

What a teaching week is

Every week, the same three things happen.

  • —A live one-to-one hour with Leah, online, marked in pencil on a shared screen while your child watches
  • —Practice questions set every week, chosen against the paper your child sits next rather than the syllabus in order
  • —That practice marked by hand by Leah and returned, so the next week starts from what actually went wrong in the last one
  • —Support seven days a week between sessions, answered by Leah and by nobody else

The practice is not homework for its own sake. It exists so that the same mistake is not made twice: what comes back marked is what the next hour starts from, and over six, twelve or twenty-four weeks that is how a habit gets broken rather than described.

GCSE French

6 teaching weeks

£705

Full rate

Half a term. One paper, or one habit that is costing marks, taken apart and rebuilt.

Most families choose this

12 teaching weeks

£1,199

15% off — you keep £211

A full term. Long enough for a technique to become the way your child writes rather than something they remember to do.

24 teaching weeks

£2,115

25% off — you keep £705

The full run to the examination, taken at a steady pace from now until the paper.

GCSE, Key Stage 3 and GCSE, ages 11 to 16. Sold in blocks of 6, 12, 24 teaching weeks. Weeks are teaching weeks: school holidays do not count against a block, so it pauses over half term and picks up afterwards rather than being quietly spent on a fortnight nobody taught. Payable in full once a block is agreed, and never before — there is no checkout on this site and nothing renews on its own.

A-Level French

6 teaching weeks

£795

Full rate

Half a term. One paper, or one habit that is costing marks, taken apart and rebuilt.

Most families choose this

12 teaching weeks

£1,352

15% off — you keep £238

A full term. Long enough for a technique to become the way your child writes rather than something they remember to do.

24 teaching weeks

£2,385

25% off — you keep £795

The full run to the examination, taken at a steady pace from now until the paper.

A-Level, ages 16 to 18. Sold in blocks of 6, 12, 24 teaching weeks. Weeks are teaching weeks: school holidays do not count against a block, so it pauses over half term and picks up afterwards rather than being quietly spent on a fortnight nobody taught. Payable in full once a block is agreed, and never before — there is no checkout on this site and nothing renews on its own.

Any two subjects together

Ten per cent off both subjects.

Take any two subjects alongside each other and ten per cent comes off both blocks, on top of the discount the block length already carries. Any combination counts — Spanish with English Literature, French with English Language, both English subjects together. The saving is the same whichever two they are.

English Language and English Literature are the pairing this suits best, because they are two qualifications built on one skill: a student taking both is doing the same reading twice over, and what is learned about how a text is built in one paper is worth marks in the other. But the offer does not care which two subjects they are.

GCSE

  • 6 weeks each £635 + £635 £1,270 −£140
  • 12 weeks each £1,079 + £1,079 £2,158 −£240
  • 24 weeks each £1,904 + £1,904 £3,808 −£422

A-Level

  • 6 weeks each £716 + £716 £1,432 −£158
  • 12 weeks each £1,217 + £1,217 £2,434 −£270
  • 24 weeks each £2,147 + £2,147 £4,294 −£476

Prices shown are both blocks together with the ten per cent already taken off each, and the saving beside them. The two subjects do not have to be the same length, and the discount applies to whatever length each is bought at.

Taking Spanish alongside French? Say so on the application — the two are timetabled together so the week has one language slot rather than two scattered ones. Spanish is here.

Mrs Leah Burgess in academic dress on the day she graduated from Oxford

Mrs Leah Burgess. French & Spanish, St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

Who teaches this

French read at Oxford, and kept sharp where it is spoken.

Leah read French and Spanish at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. She has tutored for seven years and more, taken private contracted work for schools, and spent time in schools across Europe keeping both languages current. Essays written in French are marked in French. The A-Level speaking examination — the piece of the qualification most often left until the spring, and the first thing a candidate actually sits — is prepared from January, and the reformed GCSE papers are taught as the papers they are now.

  • ReadFrench and Spanish at St Edmund Hall, Oxford
  • TutoringSeven years and more, one to one
  • SchoolsPrivate contracted work for schools
  • AbroadTime in schools across Europe, refining the languages in the places they are spoken
  • SafeguardingEnhanced DBS, and the designated safeguarding lead. Policy in full

Leah is the only person who teaches here. There is no pool of associates and no allocation: the person described above is the person in the session, every week. William Burgess, her husband and co-founder, runs admissions, student support and the finances, and does not teach.

The speaking examination is in April, which means the work starts in January.

Applying is free, it is read by Leah herself, and nothing is payable until a block is agreed.

Enquire Now

Six questions, about a minute, and you choose your time with Leah on the next screen.