New Year, Same Class

""Now that I think about it, there seems to be a lot of people from the same class as last year. I wonder why? It's so mysterious. It's not because I don't feel like learning new names or anything like that, mind you. And don't change the seating either.""

- Yukari-sensei, Azumanga Daioh

After a long year of bonding experiences, the Wacky Homeroom finishes up its school year, and will soon begin its next one. But if there are multiple homerooms in the school, there's a chance that the students from last year's homeroom could get split up. The students will have to make new friends and adjust to a new classroom environment.

But wait! When the student rosters are posted, it turns out the True Companions get to spend another year together. They've even got the same teacher as last year. What a wonderful turn of events.

Of course, the writers don't want to waste all of the character development that occurred over the previous year. Splitting apart the group of friends that form the central cast of the story is suicide, and it's a waste of a character to put Sensei-chan on a bus every year when the class is assigned a new homeroom teacher. So the classroom doesn't change.

Very commonly seen in school dramas or comedies in Japan. Typically does not apply to high schools in Western settings, due to the fact that homerooms either do not exist or are rarely used.

This trope applies only when the possibility exists that the characters could change class. This trope does not describe one-room schoolhouses or schools that keep all the students in the same class for their entire school careers.

Compare California University.

Anime and Manga

 * Azumanga Daioh has this, although minor character Kaori does get moved to a different homeroom for senior year. Kagura also gets moved into Yukari's class in the second year.
 * Averted and Discussed in Girl Friends, when the characters move from second to third year. The main couple stay in the same class, but they gain a new social circle and slowly lose contact with their old friends.
 * Invoked in Kodomo no Jikan. Aoki wants to keep an eye on Rin and knows better than to separate her from her friends.
 * Inverted in K-On!: Mio is in a different class first year and stays that way second year... but then is grouped with everyone else on the third.
 * Lucky Star
 * Mahou Sensei Negima - All 31 girls get put in Negi's homeroom for their third year. Handwaved in that Mahora doesn't split up its classes.
 * Slightly justified in Rosario to Vampire. Tsukune happens to be in the same class as his Unwanted Harem because the headmaster placed everyone who knew his secret into the same class.
 * Parodied in Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei: The entire class stays together, with the same homeroom teacher...because they've all been held back a year. (This happens the first time they would normally have gone on to the next grade level; ever since then the manga has run on Comic Book Time with the seasons changing but no one aging.)

Literature

 * Horrible Harry

Live Action TV

 * On Boy Meets World, this is done with Cory, Shawn and Topanga at the start of season two and briefly mentioned at the start of season three. Every year after that they continued to be in the same class together (and have the same teacher), but this is never addressed again in-show.
 * Annie on Community actively works to invoke this trope at the end of season one, going so far as to risk all of her students failing class so they can stay together. Ultimately, the study group consciously picks a class to take together
 * Head of the Class
 * Saved by the Bell
 * Welcome Back, Kotter
 * Mostly averted on Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, where the kids are shown to be in different level classes based on skill, get new teachers when they move from 7th to 8th grade etc (the fact they don't have the same classes together as the year before is even a plot point in the pilot). However "evil" science teacher Mr. Sweeny does follow them up from 7th to 8th (to their collective horror) and the class is populated with the same few recurring characters as before.

Video Games

 * Mega Man Battle Network

Western Animation

 * Played with in Arthur. Bear in mind that the characters are permanantly in third grade. In a Flash Back to when they were all in the second grade, they were watching the postings to see who got into which third-grade class. Several characters there were implied to be Arthur's True Companions who aren't series regulars, because they got put in the other third-grade class.