In most of my Pakistani schools (Army Brat moved a lot), a class was divided into sections and each section stayed in one classroom, you might move for certain lesson but that was it.
When we got to 9th grade, that changed, now we moved. We were not supposed to leave until the dismissal, but usually left with the bell.
This…I understand. 
English private, all-girls’ school in the 1980s.
You bet we stayed in our seats until we were dismissed. We also had to stand up when the teacher walked into the room at the start of class, and stand again if the Head Teacher (Principal to you lot) walked in half way through for any reason.
We also had ‘no running’ in the corridors, walk on the left in the corridors, and spot uniform inspections in the corridors.
The high school I attended in the early 70’s didn’t have bells. Depending on the teacher, we would be dismissed right about the scheduled time for the class to end. I had one class that was at the far end of the school, the next class was all the way across the campus. I was allowed to get up a leave a few minutes early to make it to my next class on time.
Backpacks are heavy and I didn’t often carry my entire day’s books in the bag. I had 3-4 minutes between classes, and you bet your ass we scurried through the hallways. If we needed to stop at the lockers, you had to do it quit.
I remember a great many panicky days at the end of the day when I had to hurry out of class, hurry to my locker to grab my coat/hat/whatever and then run to the bus. In high school the buses did not wait for your ass and if you missed it you were fucked. Plus they weren’t always ordered. It wasn’t always that Bus 1 in Slot 1 was your bus; it would change and you’d have to go find the right bus that would take you home.
College was soooo much better.
When I was in 7th grade way back in 1971-72, everyone got to their feet when the bell rang for a compellingly good reason: it was a corporal punishment school and anyone caught in the hallways after class started was paddled with a wooden paddle. It was part of how teachers kept discipline — they’d send you into the hallway if you disrupted class and you’d get whopped when one of the patrolling teachers (yeah they did that, assigned some teachers to patrolling hallways with paddles in hand during periods when they didn’t have teaching responsibilities) came by and found you there without a hall pass.
Fucking police-state junior high school.
In my high school, there were three minutes between classes. Two bells rang at the beginning of class, and if you weren’t in your seat by the time the second one went off you were late, no excuses (without a note). Also it was a big building and if you had to go from one classroom upstairs on the back hall to one downstairs on the front hall you needed all three minutes to get there because the halls were always congested. So when the bell rang at the end of class we were already packed up and ready to bolt.
Of course the teachers knew this so they generally wrapped up what they were saying before the bell rang.
In my schooling (mostly California 80’s and 90’s) the teacher had the final discretion on when we were dismissed, as others describe.
However, you could be sure that the bell ringing would have most of the class grabbing their bags and scooting to the edge of their seats. Even a deaf kid would know exactly when the bell went off.
I had one teacher (in elementary school) who insisted that we all be still and silent for a full minute before we were dismissed at the end of the day. Failure to do so meant we had to keep starting over until we got it right. At the beginning, that means some ten and fifteen minute delays. By the end of the year, we had the still and silent thing down. When the bell rang we were up and out of there that very instant.
I also had the experience of others, in that getting from one class to the next was sometimes a tight thing. In college, I actually had a setup that made it impossible to do it on time. You didn’t always know the location of a class when you signed up for it, and we had a large campus. I wound up with a hike (uphill! with thirty pounds of books!) that took 7 minutes at the fastest walking pace I could manage. (probably three-quarters of a mile). I explained this to the teachers on either end, so they understood if I left a couple minutes early or arrived a couple minutes late. Thank goodness that by college they mostly understand this sort of thing.
Did you all walk to school? At my school, that would have resulted in a bunch of kids getting stranded and in a bunch of worried, then outraged, parents descending on the school to find out why their kids weren’t on the bus.
My Dad got marked down in the 40’s for that: he couldn’t get out of class till the class was over, and the next class was PE on the other side of the campus (Michagan State), Even running he couldn’t make it time - so the instructor graded him on that.
… I never had compulsory PE at university …
In Aus high school, I only ever got one bell. We weren’t expected to loiter, but we weren’t timed on arrival. Teachers finished the important stuff well before the end of class, we were nomrally doing desk work when the bell went, we packed up and went off to our next classes.
English boarding, all-boys school in the 1980s.
We had a bell to end class, and another five minutes later to start the next one. You weren’t cut slack if you’d not brought your books so we carried everything we needed until the next break.
And as above, you were dismissed by your teacher when he was ready and wouldn’t have dreamed of packing up without that word. Teachers were understanding if you were a minute or two late to the next lesson though. Exept the Georgraphy teacher, who had the most distant classroom. He’d penalise you even if you were arriving through his door when the bell went. We also stood up when the teacher entered, and again if the Headmaster had cause to visit. He (and most of the teaching staff) were monks and they seemed to have a special line in walking veeeeery quietly down the cloisters to catch you if you were dawdling.
How does this even work? History classrooms are plastered with world maps, science classrooms are full of equipment, math classrooms have all sorts of geometric shapes and other teaching aids. And I’d like to see old Mr. Mooney the shop teacher carrying his band saw from one room to the next. Even low-maintenance classrooms like foreign languages and literature were decorated according to their subjects.
Lots of stuff was put up, one notice board might be geography another science. Lots of stuff was packed and taken out when needed. Some classes which needed special equipment would see students move, like Art, Lab and later Computer. Electives might also see some students move.
When we got to what you guys call High School, yes we did move then.
@rigmarole, what would happen if you didn’t make it to the next class on time. We’re things like ‘Hall Passes’ a thing, did schools have ‘Hall Monitors’ as well.
My only understanding of American high schools is from TV and Movies so in my eyes a Hall Monitor would patrol the school hallways during lessons to catch people wondering around and unless you had a Hall Pass you would get a detention. Is this completely dramatised in movies or is fairly accurate?
very accurate except these days they have adult security guards instead of students
In my HS you had 6 minutes to get between classes and since the school was “open air” you had to deal with the weather also
the teachers locked the doors for the first 15 minutes of every class and if you were locked out you were sent to a detention room for the rest of the period … being disabled I had a permanent pass which I needed and well took advantage of eventually
1966-78
My teachers always said the bell was for them. Students couldn’t leave until the teacher said so.
Some of my teachers gave us our homework assignments at the end of class. RING read pages 50-75. They’ll be a quiz on it. Have a good day.
We had about 7 mins until the next bell. Most of my teachers we understanding and gave us a couple more minutes to get to class.
I can’t remember any teachers locking classroom door. Late students were expected to enter quietly and take their seats. The teacher would talk to them privately later. Give them detention or send them to the principal’s office.
At my school, there would technically be a hall monitor. They were someone who would normally have study hall (a class with no instruction that allowed you to just do your homework from other classes). Some people would instead elect to help out in either the main office of the counselor’s office. And at least one of those people would be assigned hall monitor duty, and would check to see if you had an excuse to leave the class.
In practice, however, they were usually too busy. You’d be more likely to be caught by a teacher on break or one who glanced to see you moving through the window in their class. And you rarely actually needed an actual hall pass, as they’d just verify with the teacher that they’d given you permission to leave. Plus they would be reasonable if you had to run to the bathroom really quick or something like that.
Though I just remembered that, in junior high (7th grade through 9th grade, or age 12-15), they installed security cameras, and the principal would watch those. I don’t remember those in high school (10th through 12th grade, or age 15-18) though. That would, I assume, make a hall monitor less useful.
Oh, and I was in junior high from 1996-1999, and high school from 1999-2003.
Every school handles this differently, depending of the school district’s administration’s policies, and the school principal’s preferences.
In some of my schools, you had to have an actual hall pass from your teacher to be anywhere other than your assigned classroom for that period. That hall pass might be something that the teacher creates emself or that the school provides a specific form for.
Other schools were more casual about it. You just had to have your teacher’s permission to leave the classroom.
Also, for the OP’s questions, there were schools in which it was standard practice for everyone to just get up and leave when the bell rang. Our schools were large and moving between classes was a huge process. The teachers whose classes were about to start in 3 minutes wouldn’t appreciate the previous teachers insisting that students remain seated until they formally dismissed them.
But in practice what would usually happen is that as soon as the bell rang, your current teacher would just wrap up quickly while everyone started packing to leave. The bell is as much for the teachers as it is for the students. On TV you see them hurriedly shouting out final instructions as everyone started packing up–that’s very realistic.
Or, the reason the other student left their room to begin with was because they wanted to visit with their friend who happened to be in your class, so you couldn’t help but notice them, as they’d be interrupting your instruction.
In my experience, it’s very rare for students to pack up when the bell rings… because they’ve already packed up somewhere between two and five minutes before the bell. Occasionally, a student will start packing up very early, like ten minutes, which prompts everyone else to start packing also, and I have to remind them that class isn’t over for a while yet.
well to counter that my hs came up with the 6 minute bell that would buzz 6-8 minutes before class ended that was known as the “clean up /pack it in bell”