UK schools face a specific set of legal requirements around website accessibility that many school leaders don't fully understand. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 require all state-funded schools to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. That's not optional guidance—it's law.
But what does WCAG 2.1 AA actually mean for a school website? Let's break down the requirements and look at the issues we see most often.
The Legal Framework in Plain English
Three pieces of legislation affect UK school websites:
- The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 - Requires WCAG 2.1 AA compliance
- The Equality Act 2010 - Requires reasonable adjustments for disabled users
- DfE statutory guidance - Specifies what content must appear on school websites
The accessibility regulations apply to all state-funded schools: academies, maintained schools, free schools, and special schools. Independent schools aren't covered by the public sector regulations but still need to comply with the Equality Act.
Schools should also publish an accessibility statement on their website. This needs to include the compliance status, any non-accessible content, and how users can request information in alternative formats.
What WCAG 2.1 AA Actually Requires
WCAG organises requirements into four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. Here's what matters most for school websites:
Colour Contrast (WCAG 1.4.3)
Text must have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background. Large text (18pt or 14pt bold) can be 3:1.
School websites often fail this with light grey text on white backgrounds, or coloured text on coloured backgrounds that match school branding. Your school colours might look great on a prospectus, but if the contrast ratio is 2.8:1, it's not accessible.
Fix: Use a contrast checker. If your brand colours don't pass, darken the text or lighten the background. Navy blue (#003366) on white gives you 10.5:1—plenty of room to work with.
Image Alt Text (WCAG 1.1.1)
Every image needs a text alternative. For school websites, this means:
- Photos of events need descriptions: "Year 6 students performing in the summer concert"
- Decorative images should have empty alt attributes (alt="")
- Images of text (like posters) need the full text in the alt attribute
We frequently see school websites with hundreds of images and no alt text at all. Screen reader users get nothing but "image, image, image."
Keyboard Navigation (WCAG 2.1.1)
Everything must work with a keyboard alone. This means:
- All links and buttons must be focusable
- Focus order must be logical (left to right, top to bottom)
- Focus must be visible (WCAG 2.4.7)
School websites often break keyboard navigation with custom dropdown menus or image carousels that only respond to mouse events. If you can't tab to it and press Enter, it's not accessible.
Document Accessibility
School websites host a lot of PDFs: policies, newsletters, curriculum information. Every PDF needs to be accessible too:
- Proper heading structure
- Tagged content
- Alt text for images
- Readable by screen readers
Scanned documents (like signed policies) are particularly problematic. A scanned image of text isn't readable by assistive technology. You need to run OCR or provide an alternative HTML version.
Common Issues We See on School Websites
After scanning hundreds of school websites, these problems appear constantly:
- Missing form labels - Contact forms and application forms without proper label elements (WCAG 1.3.1)
- No skip links - Users have to tab through the entire navigation on every page (WCAG 2.4.1)
- Auto-playing videos - Embedded videos that play automatically with sound (WCAG 1.4.2)
- Poor link text - Links that say "click here" or "read more" without context (WCAG 2.4.4)
- Missing page titles - Multiple pages with identical or missing title elements (WCAG 2.4.2)
How to Check Your Compliance
Manual testing catches things automated tools miss, but automated scanning gives you a baseline. Run your homepage and a few key pages through a WCAG checker to identify obvious issues.
Prioritise fixes by impact. A missing skip link affects every page. A single image without alt text affects one page. Fix the structural issues first.
Then test with real users. Ask a colleague to navigate your site using only a keyboard. Try using your site with a screen reader (NVDA is free for Windows). These tests reveal problems that automated tools can't detect.
The Bottom Line
School website accessibility isn't about perfection. It's about removing barriers so parents, students, and community members can access the information they need. The legal requirements exist because inaccessible websites exclude people.
Start with an audit. Fix the high-impact issues. Publish your accessibility statement. Then build accessibility into your ongoing website maintenance.
WCAGCheck scans your website for WCAG compliance issues and tells you exactly what to fix. Try it free at wcagcheck.co.uk