Release notes

Kestrel is released every few days, and this page states what each month of those releases changed for a school. Each change is grouped under the area of the console it landed in, and the heading of a group links to the chapter of the user guide that explains the area in full.

A change that closed a security weakness is marked. Your account menu names the release your school is running, so the versions stated under each month are the ones to compare it with. If something you read here does not match what you see, support can tell you which release your school is on.

October 2026

October 2026 went out in 27 releases, v0.6.1 to v0.11.0. 2 changes this month closed a security weakness, and each is marked below.

October rebuilt what a school looks at. Each screen in the console moved onto one set of shared parts, the family portal was drawn again for a phone, Foundation and Alumni arrived, and a school's Microsoft 365 tenant can now be connected.

Across Kestrel

Each screen is built from the same parts

Lists, records, forms, settings, the pages of figures and charts and the pages made for paper are all drawn from one set of templates, on one scale of spacing, control heights and corners, in twelve named kinds of text. A list owns its own sorting, paging and selection, and a screen that is loading, empty, failed or refused looks the same wherever you meet it.

The band across the top is shorter, and a phone opens the areas in a sheet

The band stands at the height of one control, with the school's colour in the rule under it. On a phone the areas open in a sheet from one button. Search shows students, staff and pages as the same kind of row.

A school's own colours set the band, the accent and the ground

A school picks its palette and Kestrel draws the rule under the band, the colour of its controls and the ground behind its cards from it. The five tones a record can take are measured for contrast in light and dark before they ship.

Signing in and access

A directory sign-in matches only an account that belongs to the school

Signing in through the school's own directory matches the address it claims to an account that already works at that school, or at no school. An address the directory has not verified is refused.Security This change closed a security weakness.

Students and households

A record shows the tabs and cards that apply to the person

Each module contributes its own section to a person's record, so a student's record shows Education and Health and wellbeing and a parent's shows what belongs to a parent. The students register, households, merging and photos take the shared list and record screens, and long registers page their rows.

A registrar corrects several of a person's details on one page

The details that each keep their own history, the name, the day of birth, the address and the rest, are corrected together on one page. Each correction states what it replaces, the day it took effect and why, and a correction the school may not make stops the run and leaves the others to try again.

Enrolment

An application shows where it is in its stages

The enrolment board pages its rows, an application reads as a record with its stage track, and enquiries, sessions, intakes, offers, continuations and confirmations of enrolment take the shared list screens. The funnel and the waitlist are drawn as figures and charts.

A family is invited to an entrance assessment and books its own session

The registrar invites an applicant to an entrance assessment, the family books one of the sessions the school opened, and Kestrel reminds a family that has not booked within the window the school sets.

A family asks to start in another year while its offer stands

A family holding an open offer asks to be considered for a different year of entry. The registrar decides the request, and the offer it replaces is kept as superseded rather than lost.

A family cancels its own tour booking in the portal

A family cancels its child's booking on a tour from the portal, which puts the place back without the office answering an email. The cancellation records who made it.

Timetable and classes

The timetable shows a day or a week as a grid of lessons

Classes, subjects, rooms, houses, variations, the timetable build and interviews take the shared list and record screens, and a day or a week of lessons reads as a grid.

Attendance

The roll and the kiosk are built for a finger

The roll and the sign-in kiosk take the touch screens, where each control stands at 44px. A roll row shows the student and one mark control, and a mark is a chip with its own icon and word.

A roll names the room and the teacher taking the lesson

The head of a roll shows the room the lesson is in that day, and says the room changed beside the new room where a variation moved it. It also names the teacher taking the lesson, marking a relief teacher as relief and naming the teacher they are covering.

Wellbeing and child safety

A student's wellbeing entries read as one timeline

A kind of entry shows whether it is a concern or a credit as a tone and an icon. Concerns, cases, plans, adjustments and the registers take the shared record and list screens.

Medical

Severity reads as a chip across the medical screens

The medical register, the action plans, immunisation and the camp lists show how serious a condition is as a chip. Sick bay visits, medications and cases take the shared list and record screens.

The school names who is told of a serious visit

A school says which roles are told when a student is seriously unwell or hurt, so the notice reaches the staff the school chose.

A nurse names the sport a concussion happened on and completes the SCAT6

A concussion or an injury records the activity and the fixture it happened on, picked by name. The nurse starts the SCAT6 on the case and completes it there, and the sick bay screens count the visits that came from sport.

The health centre lends crutches and wheelchairs, and sees what is overdue

The equipment a health centre lends is a register of its own: what went out, who holds it and what is past its return day.

Assessment and reports

A learner profile, and next year's estimated marks

Each student has a learner profile. A teacher sets the estimated marks for next year and a head of department amends them.

Activities and excursions

An organiser adds a named student to an approved trip, or takes one off

A trip that has been approved can still change who is going. The terms the office agreed to take are left as they were, and the organiser names the one child to add or to take off, so a child a term missed goes on the trip without the request being rewritten.

Messages and consents

A consent ask goes by SMS as well as by email, with the itinerary attached

The office can ask a family for more than one consent about a trip, attach a document such as an itinerary, preview the ask, choose the day it appears and send a reminder straight away. A consent given by somebody who no longer holds parental responsibility is listed for review.

Reporting and insights

Reports, dashboards and the findings read as one kind of screen

A report, a dashboard, the morning findings and a question asked of the record all take the figures-and-charts screen: at most four figures across the top, each chart named with the unit it is in and the day it is as at, and each value stated above its bar. Reporting's own settings, the dashboard tiles and the webhooks, take the settings screen with one save bar.

Foundation

A school records its gifts, receipts and pledges, and a donor reads their own giving

Foundation records the gifts a school receives, the receipt each donor is sent, the pledges and recurring gifts it collects on, and the appeals it sends. A donor reads what they have given in a portal of their own.

A function's door list names a ticket without naming its code

The list a volunteer reads at the door of a function names each ticket by a fingerprint of its code rather than by the code, so a volunteer at the door has nothing that would admit anyone else.

Alumni

The alumni register, the associations and a former student's own sign-up

Former students are a register of their own, grouped by the year they belong to, with the Old Scholars' and the other associations the school keeps. A former student signs up and keeps their own details current.

The family portal

The family portal is drawn for a phone first

The portal has its own band and frame, designed at phone width before anything wider. A child's page, their results, the school's asks and the family's applications are built from the same parts.

A student reads their house points, merits, sanctions and goals

A student's own portal shows the house points and merits they have been given, the sanctions on their record and the goals their school shares with them. A school decides whether to open each one.

A student reads their own calendar

A student sees their lessons, the activities they are on and the school's dated entries in a calendar of their own, rather than asking a parent to read it for them.

Settings

Each setting states its name, its value and its control, with one save bar

Settings for the school, staff and roles, each module, forms and workflows, connections and accountability all take one template: the group's own navigation, a row for each setting and one save bar at the foot. Exports, imports and data quality take the shared list screen.

Connections

A teacher's lessons, meetings and messages work in Outlook

An administrator connects the school's Microsoft 365 tenant for its staff. A teacher then reads their Kestrel lessons, duties and meetings in Outlook, receives invitations whose answers come back to Kestrel, writes to a family from their own mailbox, and files an Outlook email or meeting onto a student's record. Interview and meeting times avoid staff who are busy in Outlook.

Privacy and safety

An extension cannot step round the block on reaching the internet

A plugin a school installs runs where it may not open a connection of its own. The three ways one could have stepped round that are closed: it can no longer reach the server's own built-in modules, load native code, or write through the streams its log lines go to.Security This change closed a security weakness.

The audit trail's day filter means the day at the school

Narrowing the audit trail to a day now reads that day in the school's own time zone rather than the server's.

September 2026

September 2026 went out in 22 releases, v0.0.1 to v0.5.5. One change this month closed a security weakness, and each is marked below.

September was the first month of releases, and it is the month the modules arrived. Each one came with its screens, its settings and its reports.

Across Kestrel

Your home page shows what your own role owes

A teacher's home shows the marking and comments they owe, a head of house the open concerns in their house, a compliance officer the staff checks about to lapse, and a coach today's training and fixtures.

Search finds a record or a page, and a list opens already populated

Search reaches a student, an enquiry, an application, a class, a subject, an activity and an excursion. A list screen opens with its rows on it and narrows as you type.

Signing in and access

A dangerous act asks for your passkey again

Producing a statutory return, a variation pack for a confirmation of enrolment or the staff import asks you to confirm with your passkey, however recently you signed in. One confirmation covers the next five minutes, and the audit entry records that it was used.Security This change closed a security weakness.

Enrolment

An international application records its agent, its variation and the welfare arrangement

The registrar names the education agent on an application, and records a variation to a confirmation of enrolment with its study periods and the student's welfare arrangement.

The offer register reaches every offer, and the enquiries list answers in three seconds

The register used to show only the newest five hundred offers and leave the rest out of reach. It now pages through all of them, and a school with a long enquiry list gets its first page in about three and a half seconds.

Timetable and classes

A teacher opens today's lesson, its class and the plans that go with it

Today's lesson leads to the right class and the action plans of the students in it. A room booking can be published by its own reference.

Attendance

A family explains an absence from the portal, and a roll shows who sick bay sent home

A parent answers an unexplained absence in the portal and the office reads the explanation against the mark. A student sent home by sick bay shows as sent home on the roll rather than as missing.

Wellbeing and child safety

Learning support publishes a classroom instruction, and the teacher answers it

An approved adjustment reaches the teacher who has to deliver it, and the teacher reports back on how it went. The exam provisions a student is approved for are recorded with the approval.

Medical

The camp pack shows each child's medical-treatment consent

The pack a school takes to camp states the consent in force for each child. Medical also publishes the notice an exam supervisor reads about a candidate.

Assessment and reports

The office imports NAPLAN and earlier results, and a teacher reads them on the record

NAPLAN results and a student's results from an earlier school load from a file and appear on the student's own record. A school maps each class to its board course in settings and opens a subject selection round on screen.

Activities and excursions

An organiser runs an activity or an excursion from its own page

An administrator adds a kind of activity in settings, a coordinator hands an activity from one adult to another, a coach writes a season comment, the office reviews a participant whose consent is in question and records the decision, and the bus list and the missing-consent list print.

Forms and tasks

A form question states its purpose, and the office reads who still owes one

Each question on a form says why it is asked and starts as sensitive until somebody decides otherwise. The office reads who has yet to return a form this year, and a student sends their own request from the student portal.

Staff

The office opens and closes an employment record

A member of staff's employment is opened and closed on their own page, and a compliance officer's home lists the checks about to lapse.

Billing

A business manager sets the year's fee schedule and its discounts

The fee schedule for a year is set in one place, and the sibling, staff and scholarship rules apply in a stated order so two discounts on one family are worked out the same way each time.

Reporting and insights

The morning list, a school's own dashboard, and a question asked of the record

Kestrel reads the school's record each night and puts what it found on a morning list, where a finding opens on the screen that answers it. Attendance, medical and assessment each raise their own findings. A school arranges its own dashboard, asks a question of the record on screen, and sends what happens to another system through a webhook.

Settings

Settings states each rule as a sentence

A rule a school sets reads as a sentence rather than as a field and a flag, and the connections to other systems and the data imports are grouped with it.

Imports and returns

Victoria's statutory returns, its absence codes and the VASS submission

A Victorian school's obligations are built in: the absence code set the state publishes, the returns it owes, and the senior-secondary submission to VASS.

Privacy and safety

The privacy documents are written for children, and each sub-processor is named

Kestrel publishes a privacy policy and collection notices a child can read, a complaints process a child can use, and a register that answers a request made under the Children's Online Privacy Code. The published sub-processor list names each organisation, its contact and the lawful basis for what it handles.