Three people were seriously injured, including the teacher, who has been taken to a hospital near Grenoble.
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All other students from the group had been accounted for and were safe, the interior ministry said.
The avalanche reportedly took place in the Les Deux Alpes region.
One of the deceased was a 14-year old boy, while the body of a Ukrainian sir was also found by rescue teams.
That area had a Level 3 out of five avalanche risk, meaning there was an above average risk of ruptures at high altitudes.
French police commander Bertrand Host told BFM television that there had been an avalanche warning in the area before the snow slide.
BBC’s Tim Rhodes tweeted that he witnessed one person being recovered from the snow.
A telephone crisis center has been set up for relatives and friends at the school, which serves over 2,000 middle school and high school students.
Up to 100 people were tonight accompanied by sniffer dogs as they desperately tried to find the missing children. The group had been on a black run closed to the public, according to The Guardian.
The teenagers were among a group of 10 experienced young skiers on a high school outing from Lyon with their teacher.
Les Deux Alpes reported 33 centimeters (13 inches) of fresh snow on Wednesday alone, a significant amount following a relatively dry and mild December.
The dead include two children and a skier who was unattached to the school group, said officials from the local prefect. “It was a typical case of a slab of snow formed by the heavy winds in recent days”.
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The deadliest avalanche in France’s history occurred in 1970 when 39 people were killed when their chalet was hit by an avalanche at the Val d’Isere ski resort.
