Accessibility statement

This statement applies to the Essential web application and any ancillary pages reachable from the sign-in screen.

Essential is built for staff in UK schools and multi-academy trusts who manage SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) compliance. Many of those staff use assistive technology, and many work with sensitive data on tight deadlines. We commit to meeting WCAG 2.2 level AA as the minimum, and to publish honest progress against that standard rather than claim full conformance prematurely.

Partially compliant with WCAG 2.2 AA. The known gaps below have a documented remediation plan and are scheduled before the first live customer.

We track every accessibility gap in our internal DESIGN_AUDIT.md. The current high-severity items are:

• Sortable table headers do not yet announce sort order to screen readers (missing aria-sort). Affects users who navigate tables with assistive technology.
• Some table rows are activated by mouse click only. We are migrating these to keyboard-accessible links.
• The application sidebar uses a fixed pixel width that does not fully reflow at 200% browser zoom. Content remains usable but the sidebar takes more screen space than intended.
• Required fields on forms are indicated visually with an asterisk; the asterisk is not yet announced to screen readers. We are switching to programmatic indication via aria-required.
• We do not yet offer a skip-to-main-content link on every page.

We expect to close these issues in our next release cycle. This page will be updated when each is resolved.

• Visible keyboard focus indicators on form controls, buttons, dialogs and menus
• All form fields have explicit labels associated programmatically
• Navigation landmarks (<nav>, <main>) with aria-label and aria-current
• Modals, tabs, dropdowns and menus built on Radix UI primitives, keyboard and screen-reader accessible by default
• Colour contrast of body text and primary UI components meets WCAG AA
• All content is reachable without colour as the sole indicator

If you find an accessibility problem not listed above, or you need content in a different format, please email support@inhouselabs.co.uk. We aim to respond within five working days.

When you contact us please include:

• The web address (URL) of the page
• A description of the problem
• The assistive technology you are using (if relevant)

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (PSBAR). If you are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service.

We test Essential using:

• Keyboard navigation across every interactive surface
• NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS
• Browser zoom at 200%
• Automated accessibility checks during continuous integration

A formal third-party accessibility audit is scheduled before our first customer goes live.