NOTE: We will shortly be uploading a new Accessibility Action Plan to this statement to highlight where we have work to do to ensure compliance with WCAG 2.2. Our plan is to complete this work by Summer 2025.
Accessibility statement for Talis Aspire
This website is run by Talis Education Ltd. We want as many people as possible to be able to use these websites. For example, that means you should be able to:
change colours, contrast levels and fonts
zoom in up to 200% 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.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability, including:
Make your mouse easier to use
Use your keyboard instead of a mouse
Talk to your device
Make your device talk to you
Make text larger
Change your colours
Magnify the screen
How accessible this website is
Our policy is to meet, and - where possible - exceed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG) at Level AA. The WCAG covers principles such as colour contrast, keyboard accessibility, text alternatives, as well as ensuring that content can be presented in different ways. A few examples of the ways we meet the WCAG are:
our applications include a “skip to content” link which gives you the ability to move directly to the main content of the page
we take advantage of HTML landmarks which are recognised by assistive technologies in order to help you move quickly around the application
our applications are designed to respond appropriately to the resizing of your browser window
Our applications are designed to be compatible with the latest and last-but-one major releases of screen readers, including:
JAWS
NVDA
Narrator (Windows)
VoiceOver (macOS, iOS)
Additionally, screen magnifiers and speech-recognition software can be used, such as:
ZoomText
Read&Write
Technical information about the accessibility of our websites
The accessibility compliance status of our products is documented in its VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template). The Talis Aspire VPAT and Talis Elevate VPAT documents are both included at the end of this article.
Talis Aspire is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 (WCAG) AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed above in the VPATs.
Talis Elevate is partially compliant with the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.
Non-Accessible Content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Further detail of the areas where our products fall short of the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria is provided in the VPAT reports above.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
New features are designed to be accessible from their introduction. Manual testing is carried out with new features to verify that there are no obvious pitfalls. Automated testing is being added to development processes to prevent inaccessible code from reaching the customer. Tools such as axe DevTools, WebAIM’s WAVE Evaluation Tool, ARC from TPGi, and Microsoft’s Accessibility Insights for Web are used to try and detect a range of issues.
You can view our Talis Accessibility Action Plan at the bottom of this article to see how and when we intend on addressing known issues.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared in September 2020. It was last reviewed in August 2024.
How we tested our websites
Talis Aspire was last audited on the 24th of September 2021. Talis Elevate was last audited on the 31st August 2022.
In 2020 a high-level audit was performed by AbilityNet. Subsequently, more detailed testing was performed in-house by Talis following training of our staff by AbilityNet.
To test the site for this report, we used Microsoft's Accessibility Insights for Web extension to detect violations on each page and then worked through key workflows with assistive technologies.
