Learning Protection and Reconnection in Primary School Practice: Presentation of the Silent Study Hall Programme

Abstract

Protecting the classroom learning environment is one of the fundamental pedagogical challenges of everyday school practice, especially in mainstream primary schools with increasingly heterogeneous student populations. This study presents the "Silent Study Hall" programme, developed at Vásárhelyi András Primary School, Hungary, as an exemplary practice. The programme aims to ensure that students who are temporarily unable to cooperate effectively do not fall out of the learning process, while also protecting the class community’s right to learn and the teacher’s instructional flow. The study's theoretical framework draws on learning protection, Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports (PBIS), restorative pedagogical thinking, and sensory regulation. The model presented in the study conceptualises temporary removal from the classroom not as a disciplinary or exclusionary procedure, but as a learning organisation intervention, consciously diverging from the logic of Arizona-type models. Its basic principle is that learning does not stop: the student continues working in a quiet, supervised space and then reconnects with the class community. The study presents the programme’s two-level model of use, its three-level protocol, and three-level escalation logic, as well as the experiences of the 2024/2025 pilot phase and the 2025/2026 institutional implementation. The implementation experiences suggest that the programme can be interpreted not only as a reactive intervention, but also as a proactive, learning-supportive space.