Access and Assistance for All: A Pledge Every FE College Should Make

This 3-minute video was created by AAA Champions and explains what assistive technology and accessibility by design is and how it can benefit all students and colleges. Please note this campaign is now coordinated by Thomas Pocklington Trust and the contact email address is EducationPolicy@pocklington.org.uk.

The Access and Assistance for All (AAA) Youth Champions are driving a campaign to ensure further education is accessible by design, with assistive technology embedded to support all learners. In the latest AmplifyFE podcast, Youth Champions Charlotte, Tim, Zehra and Tom share their own experiences and outline how colleges can create more inclusive learning environments. Listen now and hear directly from young people leading change.

What the Access and Assistance for All (AAA) Campaign Does and Why It Is Important 

AAA is a youth-led campaign which aims to improve assistive technology and accessibility by design in further education (FE) colleges. There are small changes that such institutions can make which will impact the lives and educational experiences and outcomes of students with learning differences and disabilities greatly.  

Consisting of 12 young champions across England with many partners and supporters including University College London (UCL) and Nasen, the group reaches out to colleges and policymakers for their support and input. There are many freely accessible resources that can enable students with learning differences and disabilities to focus their time on learning and engaging with a subject rather than accessing content, but they are all too often not utilised.

A report carried out by accessibility consulting company All Able found that only 13.36% of post-16 education providers choose to comply with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

In 2022, Thomas Pocklington Trust commissioned All Able to follow up on this research, finding small improvements but still not nearly enough. There is much work to be done to ensure that all college students have an equally accessible and beneficial learning experience as any other student. We as a campaign are working tirelessly for this.

Our Call to Action 

We call on FE colleges to sign up to 5 simple pledges to: 

1. Work towards making college resources and learning materials accessible by design. This includes HTML web content, PDFs and PowerPoints.
2. Create an accessibility champion who is a direct point of contact for students and parents/carers (including future students).
3. Promote comprehensive information about Assistive Technology, for example, by signposting students to the AAA webpages.
4. Use the AAA template making students and parents aware of what support they can ask for.
5. Require all staff to look at the AAA webpages and student stories so they can understand how Assistive Technology benefits all students.

What We Can Offer 

• We can provide specialist advice on accessibility by design and assistive tech to colleges that sign up. 
• Resources for colleges to achieve our 5 pledges as easily as possible. 
• Those who sign up will be featured in our Official Supporters section, and have the option to share any good practice that they are already doing.
• The permission to use our supporters’ logo to illustrate your commitment to improving accessibility.

How to Get Involved

To find out more you can visit  the Make Things Accessible website ,or discuss how you can sign up to the pledges or support the campaign in any other way by  emailing us  at EducationPolicy@pocklington.org.uk   

Our Official Supporters

The written content on this page was created by AAA Champion, Krish Daryanani.