Homeroom
A homeroom, tutor group, mentor, form class, form, or advisory is a brief administrative period that occurs in a classroom assigned to a student in primary school and in secondary school. Within a homeroom period or classroom, administrative documents are distributed, attendance is marked, announcements are made, and students are given the opportunity to plan for the day. Such periods also act as a form of pastoral care, where teachers and administrators provide personal, social, or health advice. Homerooms differ in their nature, depending on the country and the specific school. A Homeroom period takes care of the social, emotional and academic wellbeing of a student.
Homerooms by country
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, the homeroom concept is widely used in schools. The homeroom teacher is responsible for almost everything concerning a homeroom period and classroom. At the start of the school year, it's the homeroom teacher's responsibility to make sure that each student gets relevant textbooks and materials, which are supplied by the government. The teacher is also responsible for the attendance.Argentina
Homeroom is a concept that does not exist in Argentinian schools, as a single classroom is often used for all assignments. Students usually stay in groups of twenty to forty for at least two years without being reshuffled, and often maintain the same grouping throughout both primary and secondary education, with only the group's room and assigned member of staff changing.Australia
Australian homeroom is similar to the US concept but varies from school to school. Some schools do not have homeroom at all, and attendance and announcements are made during the first period of the school day in a "student bulletin", while other schools run a homeroom system which is identical to that run in American schools.Alternative names for homeroom in Australia are "admin" or "administration," "form-class," "GEL", "form-period", "advocacy", "roll-call", "DEAR" or “Welfare”. Many schools in states as Tasmania, call this period Mentor and occurs in the morning and after lunch. Most schools, as well as having a form-class, also have an "assembly" which is attended by the entire or a group of population of the school. This often entails announcements, advertising for various aspects of school life and listening to or singing along with the national anthem.
In many private schools, usually Catholic schools, homeroom is referred to as "PCG" where the teacher is called a "PCA". As in Romania, a 'PCA' also performs the role of a counsellor.
Austria
In Austria, from lower secondary schools on, each class mostly stays in the same classroom and teachers move between the classes. Each class has a homeroom teacher. There may be special hours reserved for announcements etc., but homeroom teachers perform such activities either during regular lesson periods, or a so-called "Klassenvorstandsstunde", which could roughly be translated as "form teacher period", which are mandatory for the students. Additionally, the attendance is usually checked at the beginning of every period.Bangladesh
In Bangladesh a homeroom teacher, also referred to as "class teacher", has the duty of taking attendance records of students in a class and making any minor announcements not covered during assembly.Canada
Homeroom in Canadian schools follows the US model as well, but the timing of it differs depending on the school district. Some schools do not have homerooms but the day is broken into 5 periods.China
In China, students often do not move between classes for different lessons and have a 10-minute period in which additional homeroom tasks can be done. Often these tasks include the collection or distribution of homework or the cleaning of the classroom. In competitive schools, the composition of homeroom classes is sometimes based on ability in one or more core subjects. For example, students with a talent for science and math might be grouped together in one homeroom, while students with more practical or artistic skills are put together in another. In such cases, the class' homeroom teacher often specializes in one of the core areas used to select his or her class, in addition to provide both academic and life advice to students. There will usually also be a student elected by the others as a class monitor to assist their teachers with homeroom tasks and act as intermediary between the teachers and students.France
The equivalent in France is the professeur principal, who teaches the class in a specific subject but accepts additional duties such as distributing administrative documents, giving advice on courses to follow, acting as intermediary in cases of conflict, collating other teachers' impressions of the class and of individual students in preparation for the quarterly report, and various other tasks. For this they receive a small salary bonus.Germany
For Germany, basically the same is true as for Austria. Teachers normally do not receive a salary bonus but are expected to take classes in turn.India and Pakistan
In both India and Pakistan, a homeroom teacher is referred to as a class teacher. A class teacher teaches his or her subject in the homeroom and takes the attendance records of students in a class and distributes administrative documents, gives advice on courses to follow, acts as intermediary in cases of conflict, collates other teachers' impressions of the class and of individual students in preparation for the quarterly report, and does various other tasks such as making small announcements regarding trips, etc.Japan
Homeroom in Japanese schools forms a greater part of students' lives, with homeroom teachers acting as a substitute parent in many ways. Students usually have the same homeroom teacher and fellow students during their entire life at a given school. Students are expected to take on tasks for their homeroom, including cleaning, day duty, and the organization of competitive events between homeroom classes. Students also often eat lunch in their homeroom. Since teachers must usually travel to the students' homeroom, rather than students going to a classroom dedicated to a particular subject, the depth of lessons often suffers. Teachers must carry all materials needed for multiple classes, therefore the lessons usually end up taking on a lecture style with students simply taking notes in preparation for testing.Jordan
In Jordan, the homeroom concept is widely used in schools. The homeroom teacher is responsible for almost everything concerning their class. At the start of the school year, it's the homeroom teacher's responsibility to make sure that everyone gets their textbooks and materials, which are supplied by the government.Malaysia
In Malaysia, most government national schools use a homeroom system similar to the Japanese as schools and the school life of students in Malaysia have retained some form of influence from them during the Japanese Occupation.Students in primary school often stay in the same homeroom from Standard 1 to Standard 6. In secondary school, students also stay in the same homeroom from Form 1 to 3. In Form 4–5, the students will be separated based on the streams they chose, however this may change in 2020 as the government is currently changing its education policy. However, some schools have a segregation system where better performing students get shifted to a different class while those who perform poorly or have disciplinary issues get shifted to the more under-performing classes, these classes usually have newer teachers. The performances of the students are taken from their annual examination average or overall position in the school near the end of the school year to determine their classes in the following school year. This encourages competition among the students and acts as an incentive to do well in exams while discouraging complacency among the smarter students. However, there has been plans since 2018 to abolish such system, allowing equal treatment and opportunities among all the students while allowing the better performing students to help the under-performing ones. This also prevents segregation among the students and bias from the teachers.
Since the students stay in the same classroom for all subjects, the teachers are the ones that have to travel to the classes, except for subjects that require the use of lab equipment, art equipment or other specialised tools. Students are also given tasks and a duty roster to clean their classroom, decorate their classrooms for events and celebrations, plan and organise events for carnival day or sports day. Most meetings are held before classes start, during the short break times between subjects or during recess. These meetings are often managed by the class monitor, assistant monitor, secretary, treasurer and other members of the class committee. Sometimes, these meetings are held with the school prefects or teachers. The schools will also have assemblies before the students go their class.
A 'big assembly' is held every Monday to raise the national flag, sing the anthems and is often when the principal gives important speeches or announcements, along with other teachers. This assembly is longer than the usual ones held on other days of the week, where students just gather for a short while before entering their classes. 'Small assemblies' like these are often just announcements without the principal or singing of the anthems. Sometimes prefects are the ones running these small assemblies with or without the supervision of a teacher. It gives them a chance to perform surprise spot-checks or uniform checks.
The term "homeroom" is hardly used, instead students use "form teacher" or "guru tingkatan" or "主任老师" referring to the teacher in charge of the class. Usually, one teacher is assigned to one class who will manage the same class until they graduate. Since these teachers spent years with their students, many of them will return to thank their teachers and keeping in touch after graduation have never been easier since the advent of social media.