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.
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.
Homeroom is a concept that does not exist in Argentinian schools, as a single classroom is often used for all assignments (except for lab work or outdoors exercise).
Alternative names for homeroom in Australia are "admin" or "administration," "form-class," "GEL" (Grow, Empower, Learn), "form-period", "advocacy", "roll-call", "DEAR" (drop everything and read) or “Welfare”.
This often entails announcements, advertising for various aspects of school life and listening to or singing along with the national anthem.
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.
In competitive schools, the composition of homeroom classes is sometimes based on ability in one or more core subjects.
[3] The equivalent in France is the professeur(e) principal(e), who teaches the class in a specific subject (as do other teachers) 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.
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.
Most meetings are held before classes start, during the short break times between subjects or during recess.
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.
In the Netherlands, the students are put in a group (class) which more or less stays the same during their high school career.
Those groups are sorted into levels, depending on a test child take at the end of primary school and their teachers' advice.
In the mean time, these mentors are responsible for their students' well-being, grades and performance, group dynamics and more.
However, it is not an optional period as all students are required to attend homeroom sessions every Monday morning (in rare cases, every day).
The teacher fulfills the role of a counselor (consejero), as s/he is in charge of registering attendance, collecting homework and other assignments, and make announcements.
Usually, homeroom periods are used for class contact time and as an opportunity to discuss what is going on around the school itself.
Most secondary schools call it Assembly or Form Teacher (FT) period, as the term "homeroom" is rarely used.
Homeroom hour in South Korea takes a significant role in a child's education.
Homeroom classes in high school are especially important as the students make their transition to college.
Teachers use this time to make announcements, discipline students, and take care of other administrative duties.
In the twelfth grade, homeroom teachers especially press the students to do well on their college entrance exams.
Many secondary schools form the students into single year groups of about 30 students (so a large school might have 5-6 forms in year seven), and these groups attend almost all classes together except where subjects have been tiered by ability (such as maths and English).
In Scotland, the use of SEEMIS software is commonplace, and is used to monitor attendance with a period-by-period registration of pupils.
During morning homeroom, teachers take attendance registers, may collect lunch orders, and carry out other administrative activities.