Accessibility Statement for The Sixth Form College Colchester
This accessibility statement applies to our entire website, except for the Governing Body page, the content of which is overseen by our clerk of governors and is covered by its own accessibility statement.
This website is run by The Admissions Department of The Sixth Form College Colchester. It was launched over 15 years ago and has been substantially modified in the intervening period. In 2022 it was agreed that it is in need of a substantial review. Significant changes have been proposed, either in terms of a complete relaunch using a new commercial platform, or a substantial revision and possible 'reskin' of the existing site. The website has been left in place for the current 2022/23 admissions cycle, but we propose to put in place such changes in time for the November '23 launch of the 23/24 application cycle. This period will offer us a substantial opportunity to address a range of remaining accessibility issues, both in terms of underlying coding and navigation, as well as revision of uploaded content. Our recent accessibility audit (Dec'22-Feb'23) has enabled us to think hard about the accessibility of our site, and, in many cases, resolve a range of issues. Other issues will be addressed as our part of the significant update and overhaul of the site we have planned, to be completed by Nov '23. Further details regarding this audit, including links to various audit reports, can be found further down this page.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website; for example, that means you should be able to z\oom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen, navigate most of the website using speech recognition software just a keyboard and listen to most of the website using a screen reader. We have tested the site using Assitiv Labs testing software and screenreaders such as NVDA and Narrator should function effectively across a variety of browsers.
We have worked hard to put in place uniform and accessible colours, contrast and fonts across the site. We do not offer options to change colours, contrast levels and fonts, but nor do we block any software that does so.
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. Readability tests such as those found at webfx.com gives us a score of around 50/100 on the pages sampled which means that our page can be understood by 15-17 year olds, who are our target/intended audience.
If you have any issues at all with accessing the material on this website, please don't hesitate to contact our admissions team and we will endeavour to resolve issues or provide alternatives wherever possible. The AbilityNet website also has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible this website is
We believe that the bulk of our website is fully accessible, in terms of its layout, navigation, coding etc. We do however recognise that aspects of our website, especially in terms of uploaded content, do not not fully meet the required Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) AA standard. Further details regarding these issues and our recent audit and our timescale for rectifying such issues are detailed below.
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille you can contact our admissions team. We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days. Also, if you cannot view the map on our ‘How to find us’ page, please contact us for directions.
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, please contact the admissions team.
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).
Contacting / visiting us
Our College Reception has audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter
Find out how to contact us by visiting our Contact page
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The Sixth Form College Colchester 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 listed below. This was established by an audit undertaken between December '22 and Feb '23. An audit was undertaken by a small team of college staff, lead by a member of the college senior management team, but drawing upon support from IT and admin staff. The college also temporarily employed a computing undergraduate to work upon rectifying a range of issues with website content
We are planning an overhaul of the website by Nov '23, as it is a website reaching the end of its current format. Many of the remaining issues raised regarding issues such as coding, navigation, colour-contrast etc. will be addressed as part of that forthcoming website review and renewal process, led by the same team.
The website is a key component of our annual application cycle (indeed it is its key purpose) and therefore a number of issues are best addressed as these matters arise as part of the annual cycle of events - this applies, for example, to areas such as the college prospectus, and the travel page and term dates page. Other content, most notably youtube videos, can be most effectively renewed further as we move into our work with a new cohort of applicants iby Nov 23
'Non-accessible Content - non compliance with regulations'
PDF documents available to download
We recognise that, across the site, there are a number of pdf documents that are not fully accessible. These can be identified by the automated test we ran using recommended powermapper software. The PDfs causing concern are listed in an automated accessibility report, although as the college maintains an ongoing programme of identifying and addressing any concerns with PDFs, it is likely that much of the list will have been reduced since the report.PDFs causing concern fall into three broad and overlapping areas:
- PDFs produced by commercial organisations, local graphic design companies etc. Often there are issues in areas such as colour contrast, text alternatives to images etc. A number of these fail WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
- PDFs uploaded to the governing body webpage and covered by a separate accessibility statement (see the Governing Body webpage)
- PDFs that were not titled or given appropriate alt-text image descriptions, when converted from word documents, and, in one case, a missing structure tag. In many, but not all documents, the missing alt-text image description is related to use of the college logo.
Solutions to these problems will be implemented as follows:
1. Implementation of a college wide 'PDF policy', with all PDFs uploaded by a small number of 'gatekeeper' to ensure consistency and accessibility for documentation online - from this point forward
2. The college has employed staff to locate and remedy problematic PDFs, including adding titles, image alt-text, document structure tags and language tags. We will continue with this approach - from this point forward
3. There is a distinction to be made between the bulk of the college documents uploaded, which originated as word documents and often need minimal attention to ensure accessibility, and the smaller number of commercially produced, lengthy, graphics-heavy documents, such as those below:
The Additional Studies Booklet
These are complex, image-heavy documents that may, for example, fail Success Criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) and WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
Text only word versions of all of these, and many other documents, can be requested from the admissions team.
These documents are updated on an annual cycle, with 23/24 versions available for Nov '23. As they are updated, each will be considered in terms of accessibility. This process is underway for example with the upcoming version of the performing arts leaflet, where we have made significant changes in areas such as image / text overlap and colour contrast.
In this vein, we aim to have all college pdf accessibility issues resolved by the end of Oct '23, or, in a limited number of cases, provide text only alternatives. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images and pdfs meets accessibility standards.
Tables
Concerns with tables have been addressed in many places, with significant work done on labelling tables appropriately.
Difficulties remain in two distinct areas:
Both of these sections contain significant amounts of numerical information, originally organised into table in MS Word. The tables are not fully accessible, with empty row or column headers.
Similar issues also arise with the tables in the results data document. This material fails Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
All of these will be radically reviewed for the next annual cycle. These documents are renewed annually and revised versions are scheduled to be updated in summer '23. As with pdfs, we aim to make this material fully accessible by the end of Oct '23.
The travel page will also require an update to older bootstrap frameworks to fully meet accessibility requirements. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of tables meets accessibility standards.
Youtube videos
The site contains a significant number of youtube videos - none of them essential for accessing our services, but useful as a further source of information regarding college life and curriculum. All of them are subtitled; we sampled widely and it is clear that they vary widely in quality and accessibility. In a number of cases, material, such as images or diagrams, conveys content that is not available in alternative text or audio form. We acknowledge that this material needs revision or replacement. The videos were produced very quickly, buy a huge variety of non-specialists, working under difficult 'lockdown' conditions. They served a purpose when we had no other way to communicate with prospective students. They were produced in response to a need to college open evenings; now that such events are back in place it is a moot point whether they are required, but they remain as a useful 'second tier' of material. When our annual cycle reaches the right point in summer '23, we will either remove or replace them with new accessible alternatives, in time for our Oct'23 open evenings. thus, as with other issues, we hope to have this issue resolved by Nov '23.
A number of these videos fail to meet Success Criterion 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded)
When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of video meets accessibility standards.
Colour contrast and images
We conducted extensive testing with wave software and other tools to check contrast across the site; for example we used an online accessible colour palette builder to check contrast ratios across the site. as a result of this we significantly reduced the number of colour palettes and removed the grey backdrop to various ribbons and other areas where we couldn’t achieve sufficient colour contrast. This will continue further as part of forthcoming revamp / reskin – as we move towards standardised colour palette across our website and literature.
We have, inline with government guidance, replaced our cooking banner to meet accessibility guidelines. We also removed the image carousel function on our bannerheads, as it was moving content with no pause button, which failed Success Criterion 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide
Zoom function and navigation
The site mostly performs well all the way up to 500%, retaining clarity, coherence, navigation etc. This is the case across all the devices we tested it on (android phone, iphone, PC, Amazon Fire tablet).
In line with government guidance, we have removed longer URLs and other material that strays off the screen at higher magnification.
Ideally, at 500%, there would still be no need for horizontal scrolling; we have however found that from 200% zoom upwards, a horizontal scrolling bar is added to the screen. This is to accommodate a thin grey bar on the left of the screen - in terms of actual content, all of it is viewable without recourse to a horizontal scrolling bar, one would only need to move horizontally if one wished to look at this bar. The presence of this bar is irritating, but it does not prevent all material from being displayed accessibly on a screen, even at the highest level of zooming. We think this possibly fails Success Criterion 1.4.10 Reflow? (Content can be presented without loss of information or functionality, and without requiring scrolling in two dimensions).
The hamburger menu is accessible using the keyboard as it can be expanded, but the focus is not visible to allow users to do this clearly. This fails WCAG 2.4.7 (Focus Visible). Also once one zooms at 200% or beyond, the burger menu icon that appears is accessible by tabbing using the keyboard alone, however its not clear to the viewer that it has been selected. This issue has been addressed in later versions of the website framework, but is a recognised issue with our current version. This fails Guideline 2.1 Keyboard Accessible'
Also, currently anyone navigating the website using a screen reader or tabbing on a keyboard cannot skip to the main content. we understand that this is irritating and time-consuming for such a visitor. We understand that there is a link that one can add manually and which sits invisibly before the navigation bar, but we don’t have this currently. This also fails Guideline 2.1 Keyboard Accessible.
We have removed links in the banner, where their purpose was not clear.
In terms of variety of methods of navigation a search box has been suggested in staff consultation exercises regarding the website. It will be considered as part of forthcoming revamp, as will a site map. The main menu for the college courses does however offer a search function.
The above coding issues will be addressed as part of our forthcoming review of the website and addressed by Nov '23
Disproportionate burden assessment
The website was audited in Dec '22 by Government Digital Services. It was requested that we further audit our website and address any concerns; we carefully assessed the cost of conducting the audit and fixing the various issues. The college is an inclusive community and takes all issues regarding accessibility seriously. We do not regard any of the accessibility issues raised by this process to be a disproportionate burden. We have resolved issues or made clear when we plan to do so in the 'Non-accessible Content - non compliance with regulations' section of this statement .
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We are renewing our website, with substantial changes planned for Nov '23. This should allow us to address a substantial number of any remaining accessibility issues in areas such as navigation, coding etc.
We will renew / remove / review problematic or non-accessible youtube content by Nov '23
We are developing a college-wide "PDF Policy" to govern all college documents online in terms of format, accessibility, colour-contrast, use of images etc. from here forward
We will provide accessible, text-only alternatives to documents where appropriate
We will audit and review such matters annually, publishing updates on this site
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 4th March '23 . It was last reviewed on 4th March '23
This website was last tested on 2nd March '03 (This was the final date of a three month programme of testing). The testing was carried out by staff at the sixth Form College Colchester as detailed above.
We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test:
We were guided by the government advice on checking accessibility.
We used automated software such as Powermapper and Axe to check the whole site.
We ran many of these tests, the most recent automated test results are available for download below.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD RESULTS OF OUR MOST RECENT AUTOMATED ACCESSIBILITY TEST
We also selected a variety of pages for a basic accessibility check, the results of which can also be downloaded by clicking on the link below.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE RESULTS OF OUR RECENT SIMPLE ACCESSIBILITY CHECK
Here we selected the following pages for checking, in line with guidance. (Most of our web pages are based on a handful of standard formats - we tried to represent a range of them)
HOMEPAGE - A unique page for us and one that we have already given much thought to in our planning for the upcoming revamp of the site. We’re concerned about the ‘three tiers’ of information, with lots of detail in the structured boxes in the middle – although, from an accessibility point of view, these perhaps offer some advantages.
Our biggest and most complex form – the application form – is usually accessed by this page, but it only appears for Autumn term and is not due to be in place again until Nov ’23. We did look at it anyway and will do so again when it reappears in Oct as part of the applications cycle. By that point we also plan to have a radically revised website.
SAMPLE SUBJECT PAGE - This page was checked under every criteria detailed below. It is based on a standard template and thus reflects the quality of a significant number of other identical ‘course information’ pages. A list of these can be found here: LIST OF A LEVEL COURSES. The only significant variation between the course pages is the quality of the embedded youtube videos and a far broader number of these were checked. We are aware that these vary considerably in terms of accessibility (see above)
DOCUMENT PAGE - This page was chosen because it contained a significant number of pdf documents from a wide variety of sources; we are aware that there are a range of pdf issues and therefore we checked this page as well as a broader range of infoboxes across the site.
TEXT PAGE - We picked this as a more standard text-based page – as a representative of standard text-based format.
ACCESSIBILTY STATEMENT - Was also checked as an audit requirement
CONTACT PAGE - Was checked as an audit requirement, and because it contained a significant number of forms
We also checked the forms on THE FORMER STUDENT PAGE and we also checked the FIND US PAGE because it contained a map. We looked at zoom function, navigation and provision of alternative text directions.