Find a KS3 French tutor

In England, Key Stage 3 covers Years 7–9, normally ages 11–14. The national languages programme develops listening, speaking, reading and writing through vocabulary and grammar. It includes expressing opinions with reasons, short translations and communicating about present, past and future time.

The programme sets expectations across the stage. Your child’s schoolwork should guide the topic order and starting point for tuition. The following are examples of useful learning priorities.

Northern Ireland’s KS3 covers Years 8–10; Scotland uses Curriculum for Excellence, and Curriculum for Wales organises progression without key stages. Include the school’s nation and year group when requesting support.

Consider this practice example: a learner writes “Nous joue au foot”, intending to say “We play football”. The vocabulary is useful, but the verb ending does not match nous, meaning “we”.

Start with jouer, “to play”. For this regular -er verb, remove -er to leave jou-. With je (“I”), add -e: Je joue au foot — “I play football”. With nous (“we”), add -ons: Nous jouons au foot — “We play football”.

The correction is therefore joue → jouons. Changing “I” to “we” changes the verb as well as the subject. This is a regular-verb pattern; other French verbs need their own forms.

For a follow-up, cover the model and change “We play football” back to “I play football”. The answer is Je joue au foot. A useful sign of understanding is being able to explain why the ending changed, then write the sentence without looking back.

Here is another practice example: “Elle est petit”, intended to mean “She is short”. Elle means “she”, est means “is”, and petit is the masculine form of “short” in this description.

The adjective describes elle, so use the feminine form petite: Elle est petite — “She is short”. This change is called agreement: the adjective’s form matches the person or thing it describes. Many regular adjectives add -e in the feminine, but this is not the rule for every adjective.

The spelling also helps with pronunciation. At the end of these descriptions, the t is silent in petit but heard in petite. Listen to a model and say the corrected phrase aloud.

Now try grand, meaning “tall”. To say “She is tall”, the answer is Elle est grande. The learner should identify the added -e and explain who the adjective describes, rather than just remembering one corrected sentence.

Latimer provides online-first, one-to-one tuition. Microsoft Teams is the default platform, with alternatives by agreement between the learner and tutor.

For French, test the microphone and sound before starting: the pupil needs to hear the tutor clearly and have their own pronunciation heard. Keep the school exercise and a way to write French accents ready. Agree how written work will be shared and corrected, and how a parent will receive feedback.