SGS College | Be Outstanding

Covid Update

On Tuesday 29 March, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, set out the next steps for living with COVID-19 in England from Friday 1 April.

Updated guidance advises:

  • Adults with the symptoms of a respiratory infection, and who have a high temperature or feel unwell, should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people until they feel well enough to resume normal activities and no longer have a high temperature.
  • Children and young people who are unwell and have a high temperature should stay at home and avoid contact with other people. They can return to college when they no longer have a high temperature, and are well enough to attend.
  • Adults with a positive COVID-19 test result should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days, which is when they are most infectious. For children and young people aged 18 and under, the advice is 3 days.

For education and childcare settings from Friday 1 April:

  • Regular asymptomatic testing is no longer recommended in any education or childcare setting, including in SEND, alternative provision and children’s social care settings. Therefore, we will no longer be able to order test kits .


ImportantAccessibility Statement and Road MapSouth Gloucestershire and Stroud College believes that all individuals, regardless of restriction or ability, should be able to have equal access to digital information. It is our goal to continuously innovate and we are committed to making our website available to everyone.

This accessibility statement and 'Road Map' applies to www.sgscol.ac.uk
Last updated: 01/11/2023

Introduction

We at SGS College are committed to ensuring that our website is accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. We continuously strive to improve our website's accessibility, adhering to web accessibility standards and guidelines. This accessibility statement outlines our efforts to make www.sgscol.ac.uk more user-friendly for all visitors.

Conformance Status

We are dedicated to ensuring our website complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at the AA level. We periodically review our website to evaluate and improve accessibility.

Currently our website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliance elements used within the site. We are working towards achieving AA status and will be publishing our 'Road Map' shortly.

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of www.sgscol.ac.uk. If you encounter any accessibility issues or have suggestions for improvement, please let us know. You can contact us by: Email: [email protected] Phone: 0800 0567 253

Accessibility Features

To enhance accessibility, we have implemented the following features:

  • Alternative Text: We provide alternative text for images, enabling screen readers and text-to-speech software to describe visual content to users.
  • Keyboard Navigation: You can navigate our website using just a keyboard, making it easier for users who cannot use a mouse.
  • Colour Contrast: We have partially ensured adequate colour contrast to improve readability for users with visual impairments. See ‘Road Map’ for further details.
  • Text Resizing: You can adjust the text size on our website to suit your preferences.

Assistive Technology Compatibility

Our website is designed to work well with common assistive technologies, including:

  • Screen readers (e.g., JAWS, NVDA, Voiceover)
  • Screen magnifiers
  • Speech recognition software
  • Third-Party Content

Some content on our website may come from third-party sources. While we strive to ensure their accessibility, we do not have full control over their accessibility features.

Ongoing Improvements

We are committed to ongoing efforts to improve the accessibility of our website. Regular accessibility audits, testing, and user feedback help guide these improvements.

Contact Information

If you have any questions, concerns, or encounter any accessibility issues, please contact us at: Email: [email protected] Phone: 0800 0567 253

Alternative Access

If you require information from our website in an alternative format, please contact us using the provided contact information, and we will work to accommodate your request.

Accessibility Statement Updates

We will review and update this accessibility statement periodically to reflect our ongoing commitment to inclusivity.

This accessibility statement was last updated on 01/11/2023

Our Road Map to improving our website Accessibility

We are currently updating this section of our website.

COMPLETED ACTIVITIES
  • Create a Digital Accessibility Working Group to drive policy and best practice.
  • Initial audit of website to establish defects and identify areas for improvement, using WAVE and AxeDev Tools including Google Lighthouse extentions.
    • Monthly accessibility reviews and maintenance of public-facing website - ONGOING
ONGOING ACTIVITIES
  • Continue to migrate web pages from an unresponsive template to responsive template.
  • Update remaining forms to accessible template (with a focus on most used).
CURRENT ACTIVITIES

January - February 2024

  • Ensures the contrast between foreground and background colors meets WCAG 2 AA minimum contrast ratio thresholds
  • Fix issues where alt text was appearing as an empty string or " " on decorative images.
  • Fix issues with invalid attributes of '
  • Fix issues with lack of explicit labels on forms.
  • Fix issues where, in specific circumstances, users are unable to move away from a focused element using the keyboard where that focus was achieved with the keyboard (also known as 'keyboard traps').
  • Fix an issue where elements not visible on the screen could achieve focus using the keyboard.
  • Fix issues where ARIA attributes had invalid values.
  • Develop and implement an updated responsive template on our public-facing website.
    • Change templating theme to improve contrasting through the website.

March 2024

  • Removal of all PDF items (policies and procedure) and replaced with HTML pages to improve accessibility.
    • Ensure that any new PDFs requested meet the appropriate criteria, and initially look to create that content as HTML pages. If there is a legitimate requirement for a PDF, we will use Adobe Acrobat Pro to ensure accessibility standards are met.
  • Removal of all artwork where text has been embedded into the image and replace with overlays
  • Add frame titles to all embedded videos on our web pages. Moving forward, we will ensure to conduct an audit every six months to ensure there are no frame titles missing.
  • Fix our bulleted lists to ensure ordered, unordered and description lists contain semantically correct parent and child elements.
  • Videos that were not accessible and no longer relevant to our channel will be removed from our YouTube channel and our website.
FUTURE ACTIVITIES
  • Review and implement third-party plugins like 'accessiBe' to greater improve the College's website accessibility controls to provide the end user greater control.
  • Document and highlight accessibility issues found and continue with monthly audits.
  • Our road map will change as we move forward with an aim to reach AA status. This page will continue to be updated where relevant once objectives have been tested and completed.

Last updated: 01/11/2023