Project Overview
A UK further education college with 12,000 students needed to replace their legacy VLE (Virtual Learning Envir...
Technology Stack
Compliance & Standards
The Challenge
A UK further education college with 12,000 students needed to replace their legacy VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) — Moodle 3.x, heavily customised and no longer supportable. Requirements: UK GDPR ICO Children's Code compliance (students under 18), WCAG 2.1 AA (legally required under PSBAR for FE colleges as public bodies), integration with their MIS (Pearson Progressions), Microsoft 365 authentication (students use Microsoft accounts), and live classes via Teams integration. Budget: £120,000.
Our Approach
Architecture
- Next.js frontend (GOV.UK Design System as accessibility baseline), Node.js/Fastify backend, PostgreSQL per-student data with Row-Level Security, AWS eu-west-2, Azure AD SSO for Microsoft accounts.
- WCAG 2.1
AA Compliance
- Legally required under PSBAR 2018 for public sector FE colleges.
- GOV.UK Design System components as baseline (WCAG 2.1 AA by design).
- Manual screen reader testing with NVDA and JAWS on every sprint.
- Colour contrast automated testing in CI/CD (Axe).
- Keyboard navigation tested by QA engineer for every UI component.
- Accessibility statement published on launch.
- ICO Children's
Code Compliance
- Students under 18 present.
- Privacy settings default to high.
- No behavioural analytics for under-18 students.
- Clear, plain-language privacy information designed for 16–17 year olds (Flesch reading ease above 60).
- Parental notification capability for students under 18.
Data minimisation
only data genuinely needed for educational purposes collected.
Pearson Progressions MIS
student enrolment, attendance, and course assignment synced daily.
Microsoft Graph API
Teams live class launch from LMS (single sign-on, class roster synchronisation), OneDrive integration for assignment submission, Teams notifications for grades.
The Results
Launched to 12,000 students at 16 weeks, £114,000 — under budget.
WCAG 2.1 AA: passed Cabinet Office monitoring (zero non-compliances).
ICO Children's Code audit: zero findings.
Moodle migration: 100% course content migrated with zero data loss.
Student satisfaction: 4.3/5 (Moodle: 2.6/5).
Staff time on technical support: reduced 60%.
PSBAR accessibility statement published on day 1 of launch.
“Every previous LMS demo we saw showed us Moodle or Canvas. ClickMasters built something that actually works the way our students think. The accessibility audit was the most thorough I've seen — our disability support team were genuinely impressed." — Principal, UK Further Education College (name withheld)”
Project Details
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