A Manitoba First Nation has decided that all students will be repeating their grade in the coming school year.

School closures affected the Garden Hill First Nation -- a fly-in community about 600 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg -- because many students did not have laptops, tablets or smartphones for online learning.

Catherine Monias, the Indigenous community's education director, says even for children who did have the technology, the internet bandwidth in the community is too weak to broadcast classes successfully.

As educators across the country are making plans to have kids return to classes full time in the fall, experts say patience is needed for academic achievements, and the focus should be on students' social and emotional well-being.