KAMAR Update - January 2026

A major update to KAMAR is due for release in January 2026. Here is some information about the key features in that update.

2FA Enforcement

Security is super important to us - protecting the data your KAMAR holds on the staff, students and caregivers in your school. Recent incidents involving compromised passwords and phishing campaigns have highlighted the importance of everyone enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) on their accounts. Currently KAMAR only enforces this for staff with high access to KAMAR, however on discussion and feedback from affected schools, we have decided to enforce 2FA for all staff users.

Your KAMAR administrator can already do this, by setting a number in Setup > Users > Security > Usernames and Passwords: Two Factor Authentication.

From the Jan 2026 update, this setting can no longer be blank. If blank, it will automatically be set to 90 days.

New Area: Communications!

Introducing the new Communications area, which you'll find in the Students menu!

We have moved two existing areas into it, and added some cool new features. You'll find the Letters area and the "Send Text/Email" area have been moved into Students > Communications, and there is a new feature in there called "Custom Emails".

Emails sent from "Custom Emails" are sent as HTML, which means you can make them look beautiful. Additionally, you can include things like tables and images - something you couldn't do before!

We have provided a large number of content blocks, which you can drop into place for ready-made content!

Find out more here!

Changes to Student Options

We've made significant improvements to how student core classes and option subjects are managed, allowing schools to move a student from one class/subject to a new one, but retain their history up until the change.

When you look at the Subjects screen in Admin > Student Changes, you'll see a few things have changed:

• Viewing Date and “Overwrite/Transfer” toggle added.
• Alternative Subjects converted into a single, 10-repetition field.
• Omissions and Subject History moved to popovers.
• Support added for changing subjects as of a specific date - up to 10 changes on any given line or class.

We’ve also improved your ability to find, filter and replace student options.

Changing A Student's Subjects
The subjects that students are taking this year are shown on this screen. Sometimes there will be a need to change a subject - this is the place to do it. Now, when you change a subject, you have two options: to overwrite the subject or to transfer the student into the new subject.

• Overwrite - replace the old subject with the new one, as if it was meant to like that from the beginning of the year. This is the existing behaviour.
• Transfer - using your viewing date, shift the student out of the old subject and into the new one, preserving their old subject up to the date of change.

By default, "overwrite" will be pre-selected for the first part of the year. But from 7th February onwards, "transfer' will be the default option.

What Does This Mean?
Now when students change their mind about a subject, you can preserve their timetable, attendance stats, etc from the old subject and shift them into the new subject, as of a specific date. No more need for custom student timetables for every change! KAMAR will keep track of all such changes and show the student's timetable correctly, both before and after the change.

Additionally, you can now ‘blank out’ an option line or timetable class by putting an ‘end date’ on a subject (ie, blank it out after a set date).

Need to override a student’s timetable for a six-week course of ESOL tutoring? Not hard to do now - ‘transfer’ one of their top TT classes into ESOL at the start of the course, then ‘transfer’ it back to blank at the end.

Have a senior student wanting to drop a subject and turn it into a study period? No worries - set an end date and ‘transfer’ them to blank.

Got a student wanting to change from Chemistry to Drama in April? Not a problem - ‘transfer’ them to Drama as of the date of change. KAMAR will show Chemistry on their timetable from the beginning of the year up to the date of change, automatically preserving attendance, etc, then show Drama from the date of change.

Please note: as a side effect of these changes, the old Course Selection tool will no longer work.

Stepped Attendance Response

From the start of 2026, all state and state-integrated schools in New Zealand are required to implement an Attendance Management Plan. These plans aim to improve student attendance by providing clear pathways to identify and address absences. These plans incorporate the Ministry's Stepped Attendance Response framework.

The STAR framework has four stages:

• 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.

What Does KAMAR Do?
Teachers mark their rolls and update student attendance records every day. At the end of the day, KAMAR will check student attendance records and update the count of days absent this term. When a student crosses one of the thresholds listed above, then KAMAR will:

• Automatically create a STAR record in the Attendance category of the Pastoral area.
• Send off the automated email to the caregivers (assuming you have this configured and turned on).
• Notify nominated staff about student absences.
• At the end of the week, send the STAR information off to the Ministry.

Find out more about the tools KAMAR has that you can use to keep tabs on student attendance here!

Other Changes

In addition to assorted minor bug fixes, the January Update also includes these changes:

• ‘Log in as” feature added to KAMAR for Mobile.
• New ‘NZQA Checks” screen added to Admin > NZQA.
• Added support for PAT Writing assessments.
• Removed Nurse access from Privileged Users.
• Added the ability to record the location of staff during a lockdown.
• Added an access setting to allow HODs to set up next year’s markbooks without needing “future timetable” access.

For more information about what's in this update, please refer to the release notes on the KAMAR website.