GCSE French Grammar by Tier: What Foundation and Higher Actually Require

Most GCSE French revision is aimed at a grammar syllabus that no longer exists. The reformed specifications first assessed in 2026 dropped several tenses outright, restricted others to particular persons of the verb, and in one case stopped tiering the qualification altogether. Textbooks, worksheets and tutoring habits have not all caught up.

This page sets out what each board actually requires at each tier, with the emphasis on two questions: what does Higher need that Foundation does not, and what is no longer required at all. For the qualification as a whole, see the GCSE French guide; for how the boards differ paper by paper, see the board comparison; for vocabulary, the vocabulary list guide.

Start here: what the reformed specifications dropped

For AQA and Edexcel, the two boards offering GCSE French in England, these are simply not on the specification any more, at either tier:

  • The subjunctive. Gone. It was recognition-only at Higher on the legacy AQA specification; it is now absent entirely. A full-document search of Edexcel's 184-page specification returns no occurrence of the word.
  • The pluperfect. Gone from both. Same search, same result.
  • The perfect infinitive (après avoir mangé as a tense form). Note that Edexcel and AQA both keep après avoir + past participle as a preposition structure at Higher, but not the perfect infinitive as a grammatical category.
  • The passive in any tense except the present. Both boards require the passive only in the present, and only in the full form with par.
  • The relative pronoun dont, the demonstrative celui, the possessive le mien. All were recognition-only items on the legacy AQA list. None appear on the reformed one.

If a student is being drilled on the pluperfect for an AQA or Edexcel GCSE in 2026, that time is being spent on something the specification does not ask for. It is not wrong to teach it (it helps at A Level), but it should not be displacing anything on the list.

AQA (8652)

Grammar is section 3.2 of the specification, split into 3.2.1 Foundation and 3.2.2 Higher. AQA does not publish it as a standalone document. Higher students need everything at Foundation as well as the Higher list.

The Foundation core

Compressed by category, with the restrictions that matter:

Area Required at Foundation
Nouns and articles Feminine and plural formation; definite, indefinite and partitive articles; de after negatives and quantities; infinitive used as a noun
Determiners Demonstrative, possessive and interrogative adjectives; chaque, plusieurs, même(s), autre(s), tout(e)(s), tous, quelque(s)
Pronouns Singular object and reflexive pronouns only, preverbal, never two together. Emphatic pronouns restricted to moi and toi. Relative pronoun qui only
Negation Four patterns only: ne…pas, ne…jamais, ne…rien, ne…personne
Present tense All persons for -er verbs, the main -ir and -re clusters, and aller, avoir, être, faire. Singular only for nine further verbs: boire, connaître, courir, croire, écrire, recevoir, rire, suivre, voir
Perfect tense Regular clusters and the high-frequency irregulars
Future Periphrastic only: aller + infinitive. The inflectional future is not at Foundation
Imperfect Singular only, excluding formal vous
Conditional vouloir only, singular only: voudrais, voudrait. No other verb appears in the conditional at Foundation
Imperative 2nd person only, and not avoir, not être, not reflexive
Reflexives Singular only
Modals devoir, pouvoir, savoir, vouloir + infinitive, all persons, present only
Adjectives and adverbs Agreement, position, and comparatives only. Superlatives are Higher

Higher only

Everything below is additional to the whole of the Foundation list.

  • Pronouns: preverbal y and en (not alongside other object pronouns, except in il y en a / avait / aura); plural direct object pronouns nous, vous, les; plural indirect object pronouns nous, vous, leur; plural reflexives nous, vous, se; emphatic lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles; negative subjects personne ne and rien ne.
  • Relative clauses with où, quand and que. Foundation has qui alone. Note that dont and lequel appear at neither tier.
  • Four more negations: ne…plus, ne…ni…(ni), ne…pas encore, ne…que.
  • The passive: present tense only, with par.
  • Impersonal structures: adjective + de + infinitive; il manque; il vaut mieux; il vaut la peine de.
  • être en train de and venir de.
  • Present tense with depuis: "have been doing something for a length of time".
  • The perfect of the modals devoir, pouvoir, savoir, vouloir.
  • The inflectional future. Regular -er verbs in all persons; avoir, faire, aller, être in the singular only.
  • The conditional beyond vouloir. Regular -er verbs in all persons; the same four irregulars singular only.
  • The imperfect in the plural, including avoir, être and faire.
  • The imperative of être (sois, soyez), and the 1st person plural imperative ("let's"), but not reflexive.
  • The present participle after en, plus étant, ayant, faisant including adjectival use.
  • Superlatives, adjectival and adverbial.
  • avant de + infinitive and après avoir + past participle.
  • Agent nouns in -eur / -ateur, reading only.

The gap in AQA's list nobody talks about

AQA's grammar section does not distinguish the perfect tense with avoir from the perfect with être, does not name which verbs take être, and does not mention past participle agreement anywhere, at either tier. The perfect of reflexive verbs is not listed as a grammar point either.

This is a real divergence from how the perfect is universally taught, and AQA offers no explanation for it. It does not mean agreement will never appear. It means the grammar list does not carry it as a requirement. Edexcel, by contrast, explicitly requires past participle agreement with a preceding direct object, at Foundation. Two boards, same qualification, opposite treatment of the same feature.

Pearson Edexcel (1FR1)

Grammar is Appendix 2, pages 154 to 171 of the specification, presented as a two-column table: "Foundation + Higher" on the left, "Higher only" on the right.

Edexcel is the only board that states outright how complete its list is. The appendix opens: "The following grammar list is the full grammar content that will be assessed by this qualification, in both receptive and productive tasks, at each tier."

Two consequences worth drawing out. First, it is a closed list: nothing outside it is assessed. Second, there is no recognition-only category: everything on the list is required both receptively and productively at the tier where it appears. The single hedge is derivational morphology, which Edexcel says is "primarily" for the Reading paper, worded loosely enough that it should not be treated as recognition-only.

Where Edexcel's Foundation differs from AQA's

  • Object pronouns are not restricted to the singular. Edexcel requires all the direct and indirect object pronouns listed for Foundation, still with the rule that two cannot be juxtaposed.
  • Reflexive verbs run to all persons at Foundation, in both reflexive and reciprocal meanings, where AQA restricts Foundation reflexives to the singular.
  • Past participle agreement with a preceding direct object is required at Foundation.
  • More verbs. mettre in the present and perfect, lire in the perfect, and pleuvoir in the il form only.
  • Named pre-nominal adjectives: ancien, bon, cher, dernier, grand, nouveau, propre, seul.

Edexcel Higher only

Broadly the same shape as AQA's Higher list: y and en, the additional pronouns, personne ne and rien ne, the four extra negations, the present passive with par, the impersonal structures, être en train de and venir de, depuis with the present, the perfect of the modals, superlatives, avant de and après avoir, and the -eur / -ateur suffix.

The differences that matter:

  • Relative clauses at Higher are où and que. Edexcel does not add quand, where AQA does.
  • The inflectional future is entirely Higher-only, as at AQA: -er verbs in all persons, and aller, avoir, être, faire in the singular only.
  • The conditional at Higher is -er verbs in all persons plus the same four irregulars in the singular.
  • The present participle is entirely Higher-only.
  • Two extra verb clusters anchored on connaître and écrire, plus découvrir, se plaindre, convaincre and taire in the perfect.
  • A separate tiered list of irregular inflected verb forms sits in Appendix 1, the vocabulary appendix, not in the grammar appendix. Students moving up to Higher pick up additional listed forms there (serais, serai, sois, étant and others) on top of the Appendix 2 rules. It is easy to miss because it is in the wrong appendix, and it is covered in the vocabulary list guide.

A presentation trap

Edexcel's appendix never says in so many words that Higher includes Foundation. The reader has to infer it from the column heading "Foundation + Higher". Students who photocopy the right-hand column and revise from it are revising a fraction of what they need. CCEA states the cumulative rule explicitly; Edexcel does not.

The other boards, and two surprises

Eduqas: no longer offered

Eduqas discontinued its GCSE modern languages qualifications in French, German and Spanish, with the final assessment opportunity in Summer 2025. This is stated in the board's own modern languages newsletter of January 2025.

A draft reformed Eduqas GCSE French specification was produced and submitted for accreditation before the withdrawal, and it is still online and still indexed by search engines. Some Eduqas pages have also not been updated and still describe accreditation as in progress. Neither reflects a live qualification. If you have found an Eduqas grammar appendix for GCSE French, it is for a specification nobody is sitting.

WJEC (Wales): there is no tier

This is the finding most likely to catch people out. WJEC's specification states plainly that the qualification is linear and will not be tiered. There is no Foundation and no Higher, so there is no tiered grammar list: Appendix A is a single table for all learners.

In place of tiering, WJEC uses a receptive-knowledge column: an item marked (r) needs only to be recognised, everything else must be produced. Items carrying that marker include the conjunction ni, the prepositions sauf, parmi, d'après and depuis with the present, adjectives that change meaning by position, demonstrative and possessive pronouns, and the passive.

One caution: the (r) markers in the verbs section are positioned ambiguously in the published table, and it is not recoverable from the document whether the marker covers the passive alone or a wider block that includes the pluperfect. If you teach WJEC, check that directly with the board rather than relying on any summary, including this one. The WJEC qualification is regulated by Qualifications Wales and is not available to centres in England.

CCEA (Northern Ireland): the list is not exhaustive

CCEA tiers its grammar, and states the cumulative rule explicitly: Higher is all of Foundation "as well as" the Higher list. But its appendix opens by saying the examples given are indicative, not exclusive. That is the exact opposite of Edexcel's position, and it matters: a student revising from Edexcel's list has a guarantee of completeness, a student revising from CCEA's does not.

CCEA also runs a mechanism no other board uses. Features are introduced at Foundation as recognition-only and then upgraded to production at Higher. The future, the pluperfect, the present passive, the present participle, object pronouns, y and en and relative que all follow that pattern.

Note also that CCEA's specification dates from 2017 and was not reformed alongside the English boards. It still requires the pluperfect productively at Higher and the present subjunctive receptively at Higher, both of which have disappeared from AQA and Edexcel entirely.

The differences that actually matter

AQA Edexcel WJEC CCEA
Tiered grammar? Yes Yes No, untiered qualification Yes
Is the list exhaustive? Does not say Yes, stated Yes, stated No: "indicative, not exclusive"
Recognition-only items Derivational morphology only None formally; one hedge Per-item (r) column Used as a staging device Foundation → Higher
Pluperfect Absent Absent Listed (scope unclear) Productive at Higher
Subjunctive Absent Absent Absent Receptive at Higher
Past participle agreement Not mentioned Required at Foundation n/a n/a
Restriction by person Heavy Heavy None, all persons None, all persons

Four things follow that are worth saying out loud:

  1. A student moving from CCEA or WJEC to Edexcel will be asked to produce structures they were only ever required to recognise. The passive is the clearest case: recognition-only at CCEA and WJEC, fully productive Higher content at Edexcel and AQA.
  2. A student moving the other way has a real gap. An Edexcel or AQA student arriving at CCEA has never met the pluperfect or the subjunctive on specification.
  3. AQA and Edexcel are far more legalistic than the label "GCSE French" suggests. Foundation conditional on both is effectively one verb. The imperfect is singular-only. Nine present-tense verbs are singular-only at AQA. CCEA and WJEC simply say "all persons".
  4. "Know the grammar list" means something different on each board. On Edexcel it is a closed system with a defined ceiling. On CCEA it is a floor.

What to do with this

If you are teaching or revising AQA or Edexcel: stop spending time on the pluperfect and the subjunctive unless the student is continuing to A Level, and check that the conditional and the inflectional future are being taught with the correct person restrictions rather than as full paradigms. Drilling nous serions for a Higher GCSE is drilling something off-list.

If you are choosing a tier: the Higher-only list is short enough to read in ten minutes and is the honest basis for the decision. The heaviest items are the inflectional future, the conditional beyond vouloir, the present participle, the plural pronouns and y / en.

If you are moving between boards or countries: read the two Higher-only lists side by side before assuming the content transfers. It largely does, and then does not, in exactly the places that cost marks.

Related

If you want help working out which tier a student should sit, or which of this they are actually secure in, that is most of what a first conversation covers. You can read more on the French tutoring page, or book a free 15-minute call.

Grammar requirements on this page are drawn from the awarding bodies' published specifications and are summarised and reorganised rather than reproduced. The Edexcel quotation is verbatim from Appendix 2 of the 1FR1 specification; AQA's requirements are paraphrased. Last checked September 2026. Specifications are revised between series, so always check the current specification for your board and cohort.