Sector progression, and a process that was falling behind
For Aspiration Training, the trigger to change wasn’t a single failed audit or a missed metric. It was the gradual realisation that the way the sector evidenced learner needs and learning barriers had moved on, and that their existing process hadn’t.
Over the previous 12 months, more apprentices had been arriving at gateway and endpoint assessment needing reasonable adjustments. End-point assessment organisations had begun pushing back on form 8 applications, with one EPAO rejecting them outright as not constituting a valid disability needs assessment. Coaches knew learners were carrying needs the previous tool wasn’t surfacing, needs they could see in sessions but couldn’t evidence on paper. Without the right evidence base, learners weren’t getting the adjustments that would let them perform at their actual capability.
“It became a battle. The specific gap the EPAO pointed to was processing speed. There were no numbers, no testing. They couldn’t see how we could validate that a learner needed extra time.” — Zoe Fox, Head of Functional Skills and Learning Support, Aspiration Training
The real issue was validity
What Aspiration ran into wasn’t really a paperwork problem. It was a validity problem. The previous tool relied on self-report: it asked learners to describe how they worked, rather than measuring how they think. That can start a useful conversation, but it does not produce the objective, standardised evidence an end-point assessment organisation will accept, and it cannot put a number on something like processing speed. When the EPAO looked for that evidence, there was nothing to show.
An assessment used to evidence a learner’s needs has to be reliable and valid. It has to measure what it claims to measure, consistently, in a way that stands up to outside scrutiny. Cognassist replaced the self-report tool with a clinically validated cognitive assessment that measures cognition directly across nine cognitive domains, including processing speed, and returns standardised scores with built-in performance-validity checks on every result. That is the difference between describing a learner and measuring how they think.
If an assessment can’t stand up to scrutiny, the support decisions built on it can’t either. Reasonable adjustments and EPA gateway decisions increasingly rest on evidence that is reliable and valid, not self-reported. An assessment has to measure what it claims to measure, consistently, before anyone can act on it with confidence.
A decision that lined up with a wider system change
Aspiration’s IT director was already in the middle of a wider platform migration, moving the apprenticeship management stack onto PICS and bringing in BKSB for functional skills. Cognassist’s integration with the OneAdvanced ecosystem made it the natural inclusion layer to sit alongside those changes. But the decisive factor wasn’t the tech stack. It was a deliberate reframing of what the new assessment was for. As Zoe Fox puts it, “we need to get away from thinking about it being learning support. This is a personalisation and inclusion tool.”
Early conviction, from learners and staff
Aspiration’s first weeks with Cognassist, with onboarding support from Cognassist’s customer team, gave the wider business the proof it needed. Learners’ responses were consistent: “I wish I’d had this at school. I knew that about myself, but I didn’t know this.” Aspiration also had its own staff complete the cognitive assessment. That step turned out to be pivotal. Managers began adapting how they ran one-to-ones with their teams based on what they’d learned about how their direct reports preferred information presented.
Two months in
Cognassist is now embedded in Aspiration’s enrolment process, completed by every new apprentice alongside Maths and English initial assessment. Coaches use the resulting reports to shape teaching from the outset, whether or not a formal learning support need is identified.
In two months, Aspiration saw a 20% uplift in learners receiving personalised support, driven both by clearer identification and by coaches feeling more confident evidencing the support they were already providing. Several individual learners flagged by Cognassist as having considered needs had previously come through the legacy assessment showing nothing.
The inspection that followed
Before the inspection, Zoe was already clear about the difference the new approach had made. “If we had that Ofsted inspection today and I was explaining our learning support processes, I’d feel 100% more confident about the inclusion aspect than before,” she said.
The inspection has since taken place. In May 2026, inspectors judged Aspiration to have met the expected standard across every area, recognising the hard work and progressive process changes it had put in place. They described inclusion as “a very clear and well-planned strategy to support apprentices with barriers to their learning,” and noted that leaders “promptly and accurately assess apprentices’ learning and support needs at the start of the training.”
“As a result of this support, the achievement rate of apprentices with barriers to their learning has substantially increased and is in line with their peers.” — Ofsted inspection report, Aspiration Training Limited, May 2026
Inspectors also pointed to the experience Aspiration creates for its learners, describing “a supportive and inclusive environment in which to study where individual needs are taken into consideration.” It is recognition of the processes Aspiration has built, and of the way it now supports every learner from the start.