GCSE French: Writing Tasks (90 and 150 Words)

The GCSE French writing paper asks you to write text in French that is lexically and grammatically accurate, in response to simple and familiar stimuli (DfE subject content). In practice most marks come from tasks built on bullet points: each bullet names something you must write about, often in a particular time frame. For example, AQA's writing paper has a structured task of about 90 words on three compulsory bullet points, common to both tiers, and at Higher tier an open-ended task of about 150 words on two bullet points; at Foundation tier there is also a shorter task of about 50 words on five bullets. This material shows what a complete answer looks like and trains the habits that earn marks.

The written work is the heart of the material: eight writing tasks to complete on paper, one in the style of the 50-word Foundation task, four in the style of the 90-word task (free time, healthy living, the environment where you live, holidays) and three in the style of the 150-word Higher task (technology in young people's lives, school subjects and future plans, celebrations). Each comes with a full model answer in French and marking points that check every bullet: is it covered, in the right time frame, with opinions and reasons, and with accurate verbs and agreements. The Higher models show structures that make writing more complex, such as relative clauses, object pronouns, pour + infinitive and contrasting connectives.

The quiz has twelve questions on method: which sentence covers a 'what you did' or 'your plans' bullet, which tense describes what something was like, how to open an email to a friend and a formal letter, spotting an agreement error after avoir, recognising a future time frame, answering a 'why' bullet, and three Higher structures (après avoir + past participle, avant de + infinitive, the conditional je serais), plus the length of AQA's open-ended task.

The fourteen flashcards form a writing toolkit: past and future time markers, how to show three time frames, opinion and justification phrases, sequencing and contrast connectives, Higher structures, openings and closings for informal and formal writing, and a final checklist.

All tasks and model answers are original, written in the style of the exam; they are not taken from any exam paper. Model answers are one good way of meeting each task, not the only one.

• Plan an answer that covers every bullet point of a writing task
• Match each bullet to the right time frame (past, present, future)
• Justify opinions with parce que / car and contrast ideas
• Use Higher structures such as après avoir, avant de and the conditional
• Write informal and formal openings correctly
• Check a piece of writing for agreement and tense errors

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the DfE GCSE subject content for French, German and Spanish (September 2025 version: writing in the language in response to simple and familiar stimuli) and, for the task formats, the AQA GCSE French (8652) specification (Paper 4 Writing: 50-, 90- and 150-word tasks).