Sorry @Ichangedmynameonce I never replied re the French.
Can he find out asap whether he is doing H or F tier? tbh if he is likely to fail then F is the badger, as it is much easier to gain a 4 or 5 (and the GCSE cert just says the grade, not the tier) which is a pass in the bag.
Entries have to be in this month so the school must have decided. It makes quite a difference to some papers, notably IMHO the writing paper.
For speaking, the structured questions are a bit easier ("would you like to live in a flat or a house int he future and why? (F) as opposed to "what would you change about your house" for H) and then the general conversation is just marked with easier boundaries - so a skill level that scores 7-8 marks in F paper will only score 1-2 marks in H. So the same answer in a higher exam will score a much lower mark if that makes sense.
For listening and reading, the questions are just more straightforward, tho the structure of the paper, with certain elements in French, is similar.
But writing - well the crossover question, ie on both papers, is the 90 word essay with 4 bullet points; the higher then has a 150 word essay with two bullets and a paragraph to translate into French; the F paper has a 40 word essay and then 4 sentences to write about a picture (you can say il y a xxxx for all four if appropriate) and 5 simple sentences to translate. So it's a lot more accessible - if possible I would push for this.
The key things for French GCSE are vocab and verbs.
So vocab - there is a list on the AQA website here https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/languages/gcse/french-8658/subject-content/vocabulary - it's HUGE but don't panic. He will know lots. I advise picking out some key words from each topic and spending time learning them - whether that be through post-its around the house, recording on his phone, writing them in different coloured pens, getting you to test him. Learn 5 a day and he will improve so much.
Then verbs - this is for writing and speaking mainly. He needs to know past, present and future of regular -er and then some basic irregulars. I suggest je and il/elle forms are most useful. He should learn être, aller, faire, avoir at the very least - so j'ai, j'étais, je vais être, il est, il était, il va être etc. The present tense of aller plus infinitive is fine for the future tense. Again, do this however he learns best. They need to be at his fingertips for the exam.
Sadly there is no easy way to do this. But once he has done the learning, he then needs to do all the past papers he can. There are limited ones on the AQA website, and AQA ones going back to 2018 can also be found. If you run out, I still think papers from other boards and even legacy papers are useful (not for writing perhaps) as a reading task is a reading task. As long as he is aware that the style of question may not be the same.
HTH but please ask any more questions.