student holding a diploma Early Years Assessments

Introduce consistent Early Years assessments focusing on children entering Kindergarten and students who have experienced disrupted learning.

What's New

In June 2023, Manitoba announced a commitment to expanding access to assessment tools to support early identification of learning needs across Manitoba.

Based on consultations with school divisions, and in response to the Report of the Commission on K to 12 Education recommendations for consistent Early Years assessments to support early childhood interventions and strategies for children with identified learning needs, all school divisions will be able to implement the Early Years Evaluation-Teacher Assessment (EYE-TA) in English and French beginning in the 2023/2024 school year.

The EYE-TA is an Early Years assessment tool developed by The Learning Bar and used widely by school divisions across Canada. It provides real-time, student-specific data to classroom teachers, schools, and school divisions to respond to in-year learning needs of Kindergarten students informing both classroom and school-level planning with a focus on supporting early literacy skills and healthy childhood development.

Manitoba has committed to procuring EYE-TA licensing from The Learning Bar starting in the 2023/2024 school year. Provincial licencing of the tool will enable expanded access to the EYE-TA in both English and French, supporting classroom teachers and schools in the development of an inclusive approach to meeting students’ learning needs, specifically relating to early literacy.

In response to an additional Action to implement a comprehensive and collaborative approach to identifying learning needs and appropriate interventions for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students, Manitoba has also announced that, starting in the 2023/2024 school year, all Manitoba school divisions will have access to the Pearson Canada Digital Assessment Library. More information on this Action can be found under Implement Approach to Identifying Learning Needs, Interventions.


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

The 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.

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.


Next Steps

Implementation of the Early Years Evaluation-Teacher Assessment tool will begin in Kindergarten classes in the 2023/2024 school year for school divisions who choose to use the tool. Based on the evaluation of data collected over three years of implementation, Manitoba may consider full province-wide implementation for all school divisions in future years.


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