Website Accessibility

ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT FOR KNOWSLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

This accessibility statement applies to Knowsley Community College.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. It is important to us that you get the best user experience possible from our website. This page provides information on our website accessibility features and gives information on how your web browser can improve accessibility and the user experience, and the steps we are taking to resolve any outstanding issues with our site.

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

  • Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • Navigate most of our 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 every effort to make our website text as simple as possible for you to understand.

You can find advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability, by visiting: AbilityNet

HOW ACCESSIBLE IS OUR WEBSITE?

We know that some parts of our website are currently not fully accessible. These include:

  • The radio buttons in the carousel at the top of the webpage are not accessible using the keyboard
  • The keyboard focus becomes lost in the carousel at the top of the webpage
  • There is no keyboard focus on links under Search for a course. This includes Prospectuses, T-Levels, Apply and Distance Learning
  • There are images of text in the carousel at the top of the webpage
  • There is no pause button in the carousel at the top of the webpage
  • Some images for the articles on the webpage are not accessible using the keyboard
  • Some of our online forms currently have active elements with the same id attribute and
  • Some of our PDFs currently are not fully accessible to screen reader software

For more information on accessibility and the requirements for Public Sector websites, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-for-public-sector-websites-and-apps

FEEDBACK AND CONTACT INFORMATION

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print or easy read, please contact us on:

Email: website@sthelens.ac.uk
Call: 01744 623389

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

If you cannot view any information within our website, do not hesitate to contact us and we will provide you with assistance.

REPORTING ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEMS WITH THIS WEBSITE

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us on website@sthelens.ac.uk.

ENFORCEMENT PROCEDURE

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) by visiting: https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/.

CONTACTING US BY PHONE OR VISITING US IN PERSON

If you need to contact the college by phone or visit us in person, we would like to make this as simple as possible and have a range of support available.

You can contact us via email at info@knowsleycollege.ac.uk, or call us on 0151 477 5850.

If you require a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter, please inform us before your visit. To find out more about the support we have available, please visit: https://www.knowsleycollege.ac.uk/about/student-support/learner-support/.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS WEBSITE’S ACCESSIBILITY

Knowsley Community College is committed to making its 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 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

NON-ACCESSIBLE CONTENT

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

  • Currently not all our PDFs are fully accessible.
  • Website homepage carousel is currently unable to be paused.
  • Issues with keyboard not focusing on some accessible elements.
  • Duplicate IDs have been used, causing issues with parsing.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some of the images for articles on the webpage are not accessible using the keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.1.1 Keyboard.
  • The radio buttons in the carousel at the top of the webpage are not accessible using the keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.1.1 Keyboard.
  • Some of the links in our menus currently do not receive keyboard focus. This fails WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible.
  • The keyboard focus becomes lost in the carousel at the top of the webpage. This fails WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible.
  • There is no pause button in the carousel at the top of the webpage. This fails WCAG 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide.
  • IDs used in ARIA on some fields and labels must be unique. This fails WCAG 4.1.1 Parsing.
  • Not all our PDFs currently have an accessible title. This fails WCAG 2.4.2 Page titled.
  • Tables within some of our PDFs have headings that are not correctly marked up. This fails WCAG 2.4.2 Page titled.
  • Elements on the document do not have alternate text available. This fails WCAG 2.4.2 Page titled.
  • Elements on our form contain IDs used in ARIA and labels must be unique. This fails WCAG 4.1.1 Parsing.
  • Some of our form elements need labels adding and some of our select element must have an accessible name. This fails WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships and WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value.

We plan to fix all of the issues listed above by December 2023. When we publish new content going forward, we will make sure every element meets accessibility standards.

Disproportionate burden

Currently users are unable to change colours, contrast levels and fonts. We have assessed the cost of fixing the issues with tools to help with the changing of these features and are currently in review to see if this is something that we are able to offer in future. We are exploring the implementation of Recite.me, with the plan of implementing by December 2023.

We use FlippingBook to embed a number of our publications onto our website. There are a number of accessibility issues that have been identified, including ARIA attributes, some elements not meeting minimum contrast ratio, frame not including an accessible name, form elements not having labels, and some of the links not having discernible text. These have been logged with FlippingBook who have submitted it to their development team. No time scale has been provided.

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By December 2023, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

PREPARATION OF THIS ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT

This statement was prepared on 4th May 2023. It was last reviewed on 4th May 2023.

This website was last tested on 22 December 2022. The test was carried out by Government Digital Service.

This website is reviewed internally using a third party accessibility tool, Axe DevTools.

You can read the full accessibility test report by visiting: https://reports.accessibility-monitoring.service.gov.uk/reports/64ac9176-bf28-475f-b0be-34389c54293c#report-section-4467