Stepped Attendance Response (STAR) Coming to KAMAR

The Ministry of Education's Stepped Attendance Response framework is coming into force from Term 1, 2026. This little sneak peek gives you insight into how this will work in KAMAR.

What is STAR?
Regular school attendance is essential for student success. The Ministry of Education has developed the Stepped Attendance Response framework to help schools respond to student absences, to maximise educational opportunities by having more students with "regular attendance" at school. Schools are expected to develop an Attendance Management Plan using the STAR framework, so certain actions must happen when students have been absent from school for a set number of days. The STAR framework has four stages:

Source: Ministry of Education

• Green - Good. The student has been absent from school for less than 4.5 days this term.
• Yellow - Worrying. The student has been absent from school for 5 - 9.5 days this term.
• Orange - Concerning. The student has been absent from school for 10 - 14.5 days this term.
• Red - Serious Concern. The student has been absent from school for 15 or more days this term.

How will STAR work in KAMAR?
When students cross one of these thresholds, KAMAR will automatically create a STAR record for them. This is a Pastoral record in the Attendance category with a few extra bits on it (the term, the number of days absent this term, and a spot where you can record the response activity).

Here's a quick summary of what you will be able to do:

• Customise the lists of response activities to suit your school.
• Access to these STAR records is tied to staff access to the Attendance Pastoral category.
• You can create additional STAR records to record other response activities taken.
• Response activities are automatically uploaded to the Ministry of Education at the end of the week.
• Use the Pastoral analysis tools to analyse STAR records and look for trends and patterns.
• See (and manage) STAR records for individuals.
• Compose emails for each of the thresholds, and have KAMAR automatically send caregivers an email when students cross the STAR thresholds.

Viewing an Attendance Summary with STAR information for a student

• See a list view of STAR records to get that 'bigger picture'.

Viewing a list of STAR information for a group of students