Early Years Assessments
Introduce consistent Early Years assessments focusing on children entering Kindergarten and students who have experienced disrupted learning.
What's New
The department engaged with school division leaders in March 2023 to discuss current practices in early identification of learning needs at the school division level and explored interest in the province-wide implementation of an Early Years evaluation tool.
The Commitment
To establish consistent Early Years assessments that meet province-wide system needs, the department is working with school divisions to implement the Early Development Instrument. The department is further exploring the implementation of an additional annual Early Years assessment tool that will provide classroom teachers with current, student-specific data to enable in-year response to Kindergarten students’ identified learning needs. Collectively, these Early Years assessments will be components of the provincial Data and Performance Measurement Framework.
What This Means for Manitobans
Implementing consistent, system-wide and comprehensive Early Years assessment tools will provide Kindergarten teachers with the information they need to respond to in-year identified learning needs, support data-informed decisions at the school and school division levels, as well as inform early childhood policy decisions at all levels.
What We’ve Done
Collection of population-level Early Development Instrument data in winter 2023 will provide a measure of children’s readiness to learn across five developmental domains. This will inform school and school division planning, as well as broader early childhood policy decisions.
Next Steps
The deparment will continue to explore the implementation and use of consistent Early Years evaluations to respond to the Report of the Commission on K to 12 Education recommendations to introduce consistent Early Years assessments focusing on children entering Kindergarten and students who have experienced disrupted learning.
