How to Display School Policies for Accessibility

The DfE requires schools to publish certain information online. It does not mandate a specific display format. But how you display a policy makes a real difference to whether parents and inspectors can actually find and read it, and whether the page meets the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 (PSBAR).

Why presentation matters

Many schools publish their statutory policies as a long list of PDF download links on a single "Policies" page. The information is technically present, which satisfies the DfE rule. In practice it creates four problems:

Parents struggle to find the right policy on a phone. Tapping through a PDF on mobile is slow and the layout is rarely readable on a small screen.
Search engines cannot easily index PDF content. A search for "behaviour policy [school name]" often returns nothing useful.
Screen readers and other assistive technology often fail. Most PDFs are not tagged with the structural information assistive technology depends on. PSBAR 2018 requires documents published since 23 September 2018 to meet accessibility standards or be covered by a documented exemption.
It is hard to verify the policy is current. A bare PDF link offers no review date, no plain-language summary, and no link back to the related committee minutes.

What the regulations actually say

Three things sit alongside each other and are often confused.

DfE publishing requirements

The DfE guidance "What maintained schools must publish online" and the equivalent for academies, free schools and colleges set the list of what must be available. They do not prescribe whether each item lives on a dedicated page, in a PDF, or both. A list of titles with PDF downloads satisfies the rule provided each document is genuinely accessible.

Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018

The PSBAR 2018 regulations apply to school websites. They require that:

The website meets WCAG 2.2 AA
Documents published since 23 September 2018 meet accessibility standards, or the school publishes a justified exemption and an accessible alternative
The school publishes an accessibility statement that is reviewed annually

The Cabinet Office "Publishing accessible documents" guidance is the practical companion. It strongly recommends HTML over PDF as the default format because HTML is easier to make accessible, easier to update, and works better on mobile.

Equality Act 2010

The Public Sector Equality Duty applies to maintained schools and academies. It requires schools to take active steps to remove barriers for people with protected characteristics, which includes barriers caused by inaccessible documents.

The recommended pattern

For each statutory policy, the ideal display has three layers:

A dedicated page with the policy title in the URL slug. Example: /policies/behaviour-policy/ rather than burying it inside /school-policies/.
The headline content in HTML on that page. At minimum: who owns the policy, when it was last reviewed, the next review date, a one-paragraph plain-English summary of what it does, and the named contact for questions.
The full document as a download. Provide the full policy as an accessible PDF, a Word document, or both. If the PDF is not yet accessible, publish a documented exemption alongside it.

The HTML page is the front door. The downloadable document is the full text. Parents skim the page, inspectors open the document, screen readers can handle both.

Practical checklist for governing boards

Ask your headteacher or website lead to confirm the following for each statutory policy:

The policy has its own page on the school website, not just an entry on a list
The URL contains the policy name in a recognisable form
The page shows the date the policy was last reviewed and the planned next review
The page names the committee or individual responsible for the policy
The page includes a short plain-English summary of what the policy does
The full policy is available as a download, in an accessible format
Any PDF documents have been checked against WCAG 2.2 AA (tagged structure, alt text on images, reading order, language attribute)
An up-to-date accessibility statement is published on the school website, reviewed annually
The "Policies" hub page links to each individual policy page, with the next review date visible next to each entry

If your school website is provided by a third party (Schudio, PrimarySite, E4Education, Finalsite, School360, and similar), this pattern often requires explicit configuration. Check what your provider's content model allows and ask them for the dedicated-page-per-policy pattern if it is not the default.

How the free SGAF Website Check-up uses this

Our free Website Check-up looks at every statutory policy and records HOW it was found:

Dedicated page: the policy has its own URL slug. Highest confidence signal.
Listing only: we matched the title on a generic policies hub but no dedicated page exists.
PDF only: we matched the content inside a PDF download.
Title only: we found a mention of the title but cannot tell what or where the policy is.

All four count as "published online" for DfE purposes. We do not fail a school for using a listing or PDF pattern. We do flag it as an improvement opportunity, because the underlying user need (parents and inspectors finding the right policy quickly) is met much better by the recommended pattern above.

Run the whole governance year this clearly

Publishing policies well is one piece of the picture. SGAF Membership runs the whole governance year in one platform: structured governor visits, website compliance, meeting agendas, Headteacher reports and board intelligence, with the evidence built as the board does the work. £229 primary / £329 secondary, per school per year.

See SGAF Membership →