Accessibility statement

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”:

• www.thenational.academy
• support.thenational.academy

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;
• zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen;
• 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 have 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

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

• Missing semantics and labels: Several interactive components (e.g., buttons, links) lack appropriate accessible names, impacting screen reader users.
• Inadequate focus management: Focus is not always handled correctly when updating content, dismissing elements or navigating modals/pop-ups. Furthermore, some elements lack visible focus indicators or are focused when not visible on screen.
• Images: Some informative images (including all quiz images) lack meaningful alt text.
• Structural markup: Some pages lack sufficient landmarks to help users understand the structure of the page.
• Colour contrast: In the pupil journey, tooltip and hint buttons have insufficient colour contrast against their background.
• Form controls: Disabled submit buttons on some download pages are not discoverable by screen reader users, and a hidden password field on the sign in page is focusable on mobile layouts.
• Status and error messaging: Status messages and error notifications are not always programmatically announced to assistive technologies. Additionally, some form errors trigger too early, before users have had the opportunity to complete the form.
• Keyboard accessibility: Interactive elements within the support/feedback modal and embedded Google Slides/Google Docs files are not operable via keyboard, limiting access for non-mouse users.
• Screen reader compatibility: Embedded Google Slides/Google Docs files cannot be accessed by screen reader users.
• Zoom/reflow: On the homepage curriculum picker and pupil quiz pages, some content is obscured from view at high zoom levels and/or smaller screens.
• Captions and transcripts: our foreign language lessons videos (French, German, Spanish) do not have captions or transcripts. Some informational videos on landing pages also do not have captions and/or transcripts.

Feedback and contact information

We welcome 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:

• Email [email protected]; or
• Use our ‘Feedback’ widget and provide us with your details.
• Report an issue by completing the short form found on our contact-us page, https://www.thenational.academy/contact-us

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

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).

Technical information about this website's accessibility

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

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed 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.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (AA):

• Informative images in quizzes have no text alternative;
• Some icons (e.g., ‘opens in new window’) lack descriptive labels.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A):

• Headings are incorrectly structured (e.g., sibling headings without hierarchy, non-heading text marked as headings);
• Accordion headings and other key headings are not marked up semantically;
• On some pages, landmark structure is inconsistent or missing;
• Links that open in a new tab are not programmatically communicated;
• On the sign in page, a hidden password field is focusable on mobile despite not being visually available;
• On pupil quiz pages, hint tooltips are announced to screen reader users before they are opened;
• On pupil quiz pages, short answer fields are not programmatically associated with the question text;
• On pupil lesson review pages, the ‘copy link’ success message is not announced to screen reader users.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 1.4.10 Reflow (AA):

• On the homepage curriculum picker, some content overflows its container and becomes obscured at smaller viewports;
• On pupil quiz pages, main content becomes obscured at 400% browser zoom.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast (AA):

• On the sign up and login pages, the focus indicator has insufficient contrast;
• In parts of the pupil journey, tooltip and hint buttons do not meet minimum colour contrast requirements.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (A):

• Focus within embedded slides isn’t clear;
• The feedback/support modal is not reachable using keyboard navigation;
• Many interactive components in the feedback modal are not keyboard operable.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) (AA):

• On the Search results page and the Blogs and Webinars landing pages, focus does not remain trapped within the modal-style filter or category panels when they are opened;
• In the pupil lesson journey, some content is announced by screen readers but not automatically scrolled into view.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 4.1.2 Name Role Value (A):

• Interactive components missing roles or accessible names (e.g., feedback modal buttons, links);
• A disabled button is not announced to screen reader users;
• Form validation errors are not consistently announced to screen reader users at the right time;
• Some status messages are not programmatically announced;
• On the pupil lesson results page, results buttons are not programmatically associated with their corresponding section.

Remaining individual issues found:

• Images in quizzes have missing or inappropriate text alternatives. This fails WCAG success criterion: 1.1.1 Non-text Content (AA)
• Some pre-recorded videos lack transcripts. This fails WCAG success criteria: 1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded) (A) and
• The user account flyout menu causes a focus trap when open. This fails WCAG success criterion: 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap (A)
• On teacher lesson pages, the dropdown caret in the ‘Create more with AI’ button does not update to convey its current state. This fails WCAG success criterion: 3.2.4 Consistent Identification (AA)
• 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 have 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 https://support.thenational.academy/. Some pages on this subdomain fail some automated accessibility checks.
• Some of our embedded/popup content is built and hosted using third party software, such as Google Slides, Gleap and Hubspot, and has some limitations as to how they can be accessed.
• 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 outstanding areas of non-compliance that we plan to resolve (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.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 31 July 2026. It was last reviewed on 31 July 2026.

Our website was last tested in March 2026 by UserVision, who performed an expert evaluation of selected pages against all level A and AA success criteria of WCAG 2.2. The URLs were selected to ensure that a representative selection of pages, templates, components and key content were tested.