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Oak National Academy
Oak National Academy
Teachers
Pupils

Accessibility statement

Updated

Introduction

This accessibility statement applies to the websites at the addresses below, which are owned and operated by Oak National Academy Limited ("Oak"). We refer to these collectively as “the website”:

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts;
  • Read and use most of the website while zoomed in up to 400%;
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard;
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software;
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most
  • recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

There are many options for you to customise your web browser and device to help you navigate this (and other) websites more easily. AbilityNet has helpful advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

Oak is committed to making this website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (“the accessibility regulations”).

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • labels for buttons and form fields are not provided in some areas (3rd party)
  • the embedded google slides are not accessible
  • some custom elements such as tabs and accordions haven’t been marked up correctly
  • some content that appears and changes dynamically are not announced to screen reader users
  • we have signed versions of our EYFS, key stage 1 and key stage 2 videos for English, Maths, Science, Geography, History, Computing and Art 2020-2022 content. We also have signed versions for our entire specialist curriculum. Other videos are not currently signed

Feedback and contact information

We appreciate your feedback and your understanding, particularly if you are experiencing a frustrating problem with accessing parts of our website, including our lessons. We are keen to offer a service that supports as wide a set of needs as possible.

If you need information on this website in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

Please also contact us if you find any problems which are not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements.

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Oak is committed to making this website accessible, in accordance with the accessibility regulations. We build our site to be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2. We are compliant with these standards except as highlighted below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

We are aware of the following areas of non-compliance and have planned development work to address these:

  • Some foreign language lesson videos may have no captioning or only partial captioning
  • Decorative images aren’t hidden from screen readers in the Feedback widget. This fails WCAG 2.2 AA success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-Text Content)
  • Labels are not associated with the form fields in the Feedback widget. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships)
  • Screen reader users are unable to access content in the web-based Google Slides (deck and worksheet). This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships)
  • Error messages are not associated with form fields. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships)
  • A title hasn’t been provided for some videos. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships)
  • The helper text “what describes you best” on the newsletter signup form isn’t available for screen reader users. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships)
  • Links have been incorrectly assigned as a heading 3 and text element as a heading 4. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships)
  • The input purpose of "Name" and "Email Address" isn't identified in the Feedback widget. This fails WCAG 2.2 AA success criterion 1.3.5 (Identify Input Purpose)
  • Several buttons can be used with a mouse but not with a keyboard in the Feedback widget. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard)
  • The focus order doesn’t follow the visual order in some areas. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 2.4.3 (Focus Order)
  • Custom elements such as tabs and accordions haven’t been marked up accordingly. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value)
  • Required form fields don’t have an aria-required element assigned in the Feedback widget. This fails WCAG 2.2 A success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value)
  • Dynamic change of context is not announced to screen reader users in the Chat function. This fails WCAG 2.2 AA success criterion 4.1.3 (Status Messages)
  • Inaccessible documents – the website includes PDFs that are essential to providing our services and that do not comply with the accessibility standards.

Disproportionate burden

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues listed below. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will reassess the continued impact of these issues when the relevant contracts are renewed.

  • We use Hubspot to host a support knowledge base at support.thenational.academy. Some pages on this subdomain fail some automated accessibility checks.
  • Some of our content is built and hosted using third party software, such as Google Slides, and has some limitations as to how they can be accessed when embedded on a page.
  • The PDF versions of our lesson resources lack the necessary tagging for screen reader users.

What are we doing to improve accessibility

As highlighted above, we have work planned to address areas of non-compliance (except for cases of disproportionate burden).

The website currently undergoes daily automated quality assurance testing during our deployment process. We also do regular manual quality checks with GOV.UK’s published list of modern browsers. We regularly commission an independent accessibility audit on a sample of pages to highlight areas requiring improvement.

All of our lessons are tested to ensure that they can be viewed and completed. We perform browser testing for all the latest versions of major desktop and mobile browsers. We test using devices, screen readers and browsers that are recommended to us by accessibility experts, including those set out in the relevant GOV.UK service manuals.

Enforcement procedure

We will endeavour to respond to your feedback, including any complaints, you provide to us, using the contact information above, within 15 working days of receipt. It may not be possible to fully respond to you, at that stage, if further investigations are required. If this is the case, we will let you know and tell you what we are doing to deal with the issue(s) you have raised and when you can expect a full reply.

When we respond to you, we will inform you how we investigated the issues raised by you. We will always acknowledge where we can improve; equally, if we do not agree with you, we will let you know why.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 27 August 2024. It was last reviewed on 27 August 2024.

Our website was last tested in August 2024 by Nomensa, who performed an expert evaluation of website pages against all level A and AA success criteria of WCAG 2.2. Content was selected to make sure a good representation of different pages, templates and components were tested as well as key content.