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I'm an American who's relocated to Germany, along with my son. He's in 6th grade at a Gymnasium now. He brought home a list of his classes, and I'm baffled by the abbreviations. Can anyone help me figure them out? I've listed the few I was able to figure out:

D Deutsch
Mus Music
M Math
S Sport
Geo Geography
BNTPr Biologie/Naturwissenschaft/Technik/?
G Geschichte
F French
QM Qualifikations Mathematik(?) - Remedial Math
KL Homeroom
QD Qualifikation Deutsch(?) - Remedial Deutsch
Bk Visual Art
Rel Religion

I feel like these must be common if the school doesn't give a key to them.

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    Where is this (which state in Germany?)
    – Gala
    Sep 12, 2016 at 21:13
  • Baden-Württemberg.
    – Kyralessa
    Sep 13, 2016 at 2:16
  • I've added more that I was able to figure out since I posted this.
    – Kyralessa
    Oct 4, 2016 at 15:34

1 Answer 1

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Baden-Württemberg's secretary of education does not publish a uniform list of abbreviations as other German states do. But she does publish a list of classes which are taught throughout the state's public schools.

I suspect that each school or each district might be using their own unique set of acronyms. Your itemization looks good for most of the classes. This is what I can add to address your direct question:

  • "BK" is likely to be "Bildende Kunst" - visual arts
  • BNT is a combined / interdisciplinary science class, not certain what "Pr" is in this context, might be something like "Praxis" or "Praktikum" - i.e. hands-on
  • No idea about QM, KL QD,

Note that most (if not all) schools will call parents for a ~2-hour information meeting / evening in the first month of the school year, where class teachers get to introduce themselves, questions will be asked and answered, the planned school trip will be discussed and some paperwork will be done. So you might wait for the invitation and get some basic questions answered there if you are more or less fluent in German.

If you are not or if you have many questions to ask which might not fit well into such an event, my ultimate advice would be to just ring up the class teacher for a short meeting at the school (or give your kid a note with your phone number on it so the class teacher can call you). They generally are very open to such requests and surely will be able to accommodate a half-hour meeting within a couple of days.

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    Thanks for that link; it's very helpful. I found this page that has some of the abbreviations: schule-bw.de/unterricht/bildungsplaene_lehrplaene/… It looks like BNT stands for Biologie/Naturphänomene/Technik.
    – Kyralessa
    Sep 13, 2016 at 11:07
  • Could the QM and QD mean (something)Math and (something)Deutsch? Such as Extra or Advanced or Remedial? I don't know enough words in German starting with Q to figure out what that might be.
    – Kyralessa
    Sep 13, 2016 at 11:30
  • @Kyralessa I wonder why your boy would get an extra maths class and I cannot think of a suitable word either, but this does not sound too far-fetched. With thousands of refugee kids having to catch up specifically in these two areas, I would not be surprised if additional classes would be a regular offering at schools by now.
    – the-wabbit
    Sep 13, 2016 at 11:49
  • They might be optional? He definitely wouldn't need remedial math, but remedial Deutsch would be helpful for sure.
    – Kyralessa
    Sep 13, 2016 at 12:00
  • "remedial" could mean something like "based on interest" or German "Leistungskurs" too, so you choose one of it (for example German, if you want to become a journalist and Math if you want to study information technology) Jun 7, 2019 at 6:59

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