Miss Doublevay French Tutor

11/09/2026

Lots of admin the last few days!

🧐 Safeguarding, Prevent training and new revision timetables for all GCSE and IGCSE students are now on the student portal.

🚀As most groups are now full, I will be relaunching my Revision membership. I trialled this successfully last year - access to all my online resources, exam question walkthrough videos and revision timetables for students who prefer to study independently.

👀Watch this space!

04/09/2026

A few lessons this week before most students return next week.

One of my lesson starters - to show an example of the simple future tense, typically translated as ‘will do something’ (insert appropriate verb).

Can anyone translate this one? The word ‘propriétaire’ is closely related to our word ‘proprietor’.

31/08/2026

29/08/2026

2 spaces left in my GCSE Higher small group classes.

We recap topics, vocabulary and grammar and practise exam skills.

I’m an examiner, so I know exactly where you need to focus your energy.

Access to my bank of resources, grammar guides, revision timetables etc for independent study.

One space on Mondays at 5.10pm and one space on Tuesdays at 5pm.

29/08/2026

I love this joke - particularly now I’m a tutor and don’t have the ‘back to school’ feeling!

Who can translate?

Who is feeling nervous about the new school year?

26/08/2026

Have you heard about the latest viral croissant recipe?

I mean to call it a recipe is a bit of a stretch of the imagination!

You cut your croissant lengthwise (easier to do this when it is cold).

Heat in an oven for 5 minutes (apparently it's 3 minutes in an airfyer but I am the only person left on the planet who doesn't have one).

Open croissant and fill with a magnum icecream. Yes, a whole magnum with a buttery, flaky croissant - you won't need dinner.

Pull out the stick from the magnum and eat like a sandwich. Apparently its all in the crunch of the chocolate around the icecream, so you could use a different kind of choc ice.

Let me know if you have tried it / want to / can't think of anything worse. I am a bit scared to try it...

24/08/2026

I love the Paris metro. To the point where a whole section of the novel I’m writing is set inside the metro system.

Who has rode on the Paris metro? Favourite/least favourite thing?

One of my favourite things is the Art Nouveau station entrance signs. Least favourite? The overcrowding at ‘l’heure de pointe’ (rush hour) like many other metros across the world.

Thanks to Jill Foulkes for sharing this post.

Most Metro stations in Paris are fairly functional, but the Line 12 platform at Concorde turns one of France's most important historical documents into part of the station itself.

The walls are covered with white tiles printed in blue letters, spelling out the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Adopted in 1789 during the French Revolution, the document set out fundamental principles of liberty, equality, and individual rights that went on to influence ideas about civil rights far beyond France.

The installation was created by artist Françoise Schein and is particularly fitting given where the station sits. Directly above is Place de la Concorde, known during the Revolution as Place de la Révolution and the site where Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and more than a thousand others were executed by guillotine.

Concorde is served by Metro Lines 1, 8, and 12, but it's the Line 12 platform you want to look for. The blue letters stretch across the walls and even the vaulted ceiling, turning an ordinary Metro platform into something completely different.

22/08/2026

I haven’t done this for awhile, so I thought I’d tell you a bit about myself and how I became a French teacher.

⛺️ I fell in love with France and the French language as a little girl when we went on our annual summer camping trip to France. Dad would finish work on a Friday evening, clear all his work stuff out of his van and put bench seats in the back for us to sit on. Mum would pack all our food and clothes inside the seats and we would drive through the night to reach our campsite in the South of France.

The dodgy tins of meatballs and flimsy toilet tent did not put me off and I dreamed of the day I would live in France. The day I left to stay in Toulouse for a term as part of my first uni course, I didn’t return to live in the U.K. for over 20 years. My time was spent teaching, translating, interpreting, project managing and bringing up my French son. 🇫🇷

I returned a few years ago to my childhood Norfolk and gained a PGCE at the UEA, followed by a Masters in Education. I quickly became Head of Languages at a local secondary school and an examiner for GCSE and IGCSE exam boards.👩‍🎓

From my experience teaching in France, I knew that I loved teaching small groups and 1:1 classes, where I could help make progress more quickly than the busy classroom environment. I have now been tutoring full time for more than three years.

When I’m not teaching or watching french dramas, you will probably find me in the greenhouse. I have a large collection of rare house plants and also love to grow my own veg. 🥒🌱🪴

Feel free to reach out, ask questions, or simply say "Bonjour!" I can't wait to hear from you. 🌟 Take a look at my website for more details on the tuition I offer (link in the chat).

21/08/2026

🥇Some fantastic results from students in my small group classes for Higher French revision.

There are a couple of spaces left in my Monday and Tuesday after school sessions and the IGCSE group runs on Wednesdays.

Message me for more info or comment FRENCH below 🇫🇷

20/08/2026

Just incase you grew up with the old grading system - like me!

GCSE results day! 🤞🏻🤞🏻

Every year, I find myself explaining the grading system to someone. Yesterday, it was someone’s granny who wanted to understand her grandchildren’s results today. 🙂

Here’s a helpful graphic for anyone else who needs it. 👍🏻