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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;
  • 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’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:

  • Missing semantics and labels: Several interactive components (e.g., buttons, disclosures, listboxes) lack appropriate roles, states, or accessible names, impacting screen reader users.
  • Inadequate focus management: Focus is not always handled correctly when updating content or dismissing elements, and some elements lack visible focus indicators.
  • Images: Some functional images lack meaningful alt text and decorative icons can be exposed to assistive tech.
  • Structural markup: Improper use of headings, lists, and form controls can lead to confusion and a breakdown of information relationships.
  • Status and error messaging gaps: Status messages and error notifications are not always programmatically announced to assistive technologies.
  • Keyboard accessibility gaps: Interactive elements within the chat modal are not operable via keyboard, limiting access for non-mouse users.
  • Captions and transcripts: our foreign language lessons videos (French, German, Spanish) do not have captions or transcripts.

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 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 4.1.2 Name Role Value (A):

  • Interactive components missing roles or accessible names (e.g., feedback modal buttons, links).
  • Disclosures are not programmatically determined as expandable.
  • The current page indicator in the header and breadcrumbs is not programmatically identified.
  • Listbox has no accessible name.

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

  • Functional images have missing or inappropriate text alternatives.
  • Decorative icons and images are not hidden from assistive technologies.
  • 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.
  • Radio buttons and dropdowns are not programmatically associated with their visual labels.
  • Lists (e.g., links, selectable options) are not marked up as lists.
  • Key-value pairs are not marked as description lists.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 2.4.3 Focus Order (A):

  • Focus is not managed appropriately when dismissing banners or updating content.
  • Focus is lost or reset upon pagination or toggling elements.

The following issues fail WCAG criterion 4.1.3 Status Messages (AA):

  • Drag-and-drop and feedback messages are not programmatically determined as status messages.

Remaining individual issues found:

  • Several checkboxes and buttons lack visible focus indicators. This fails
  • WCAG success criterion: 2.4.7 Focus Visible (AA)
  • Many interactive components in the feedback modal are not keyboard operable., this fails WCAG success criterion: 2.1.1 Keyboard (A)
  • Focused elements within the footer are hidden by the sticky cookie banner., this fails WCAG success criterion: 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) (AA)
  • Text spacing causes button labels to become partially visible., this fails WCAG success criterion: 1.4.12 Text Spacing (AA)
  • An image contains embedded text., this fails WCAG success criterion: 1.4.5 Images of Text (AA)
  • On-blur error messages do not have a programmatic call-to-action., this fails WCAG success criterion: 3.3.1 Error Identification (A)
  • A submit button uses color alone to communicate its state., this fails
  • WCAG success criterion: 1.4.1 Use of Colour (A)
  • Required fields in the feedback modal have an asterisk (*) but this is not explained to users., this fails WCAG success criterion: 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (A)
  • Some foreign language lesson videos may have no captioning or only partial captioning
  • 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 embedded/popup content is built and hosted using third party software, such as Google Slides, Hubspot and Posthog, 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 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 4 June 2025. It was last reviewed on 4 June 2025.

Our website was last tested in March 2025 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.