SEND Local Offer accessibility

To ensure Somerset’s SEND Local Offer is accessible to all, we need to focus on helping people to understand the information we are sharing with them. We are committed to ensuring our services and staff are accessible and approachable, working collaboratively in an open, honest and transparent way.

Ofsted identified in March 2020 that we have a ‘range of comprehensive and useful information for parents and professionals’ on our Local Offer website. We use both a website tool that checks readability age, and also the Somerset Parent Carer Forum complete audits of all the information pages twice yearly to ensure this. Readability is monitored with the aim of a reading age of 9 years old. Plain English checks are also made with the aim of between 20 and 25 words per sentence. A member of our Digital Team is trained in Plain English and trains others.

As we moved to a new website platform in July 2022 we have developed page templates and style guides to ensure consistency in accessible style including;

• pyramid to stack key messages upfront
• improved use of headings to break the text up
• greater use of keep-it-simple bullets
• improved use of accordions to hide text that may not be relevant to all