Every secondary SENDCo knows the Form 8 process. Most of them also know the feeling of sitting down to compile the evidence for it and realising the next two hours of their afternoon have just disappeared.
The specialist assessment gets the attention. The pass/fail thresholds, the standardised scores, the qualified assessor — those are what schools think about when they think about access arrangements. But Part 1 of Form 8 is not the specialist assessment. It is the SENDCo's body of evidence. And it is where most of the time actually goes.
The evidence exists. The time to compile it does not.
What Part 1 actually requires
Part 1 requires documented evidence of the candidate's normal way of working: current difficulties in the classroom, results from screening tools, teacher and support staff observations, and the support and adjustments already in place. It needs to describe how the difficulty impacts on teaching and learning and performance in internal tests and mock examinations. It needs to be specific, credible, and defensible at inspection.
None of that information has to be invented. Every piece of it already exists somewhere in the school — in the pupil's plan, in review notes, in screening results, in staff observations. The problem is that it exists in five different places, and pulling it together into a coherent, JCQ-ready narrative takes time that most SENDCos do not have at the point in the year when access arrangements applications are due.
The 2025/26 bar has been raised
The 2025/26 JCQ guidance made the Part 1 standard more explicit. The term 'thin file' — referring to applications with insufficient evidence of the candidate's normal way of working — now appears directly in the guidance. A thin file is not just a failed application. It is an inspection risk, and potentially a legal one if a candidate's access arrangements are refused on the basis of inadequate evidence.
The guidance is clear about what is required: teacher feedback and evidence of the candidate's normal way of working as a minimum, including comments and observations from teaching staff, results from any screening tools, and evidence of arrangements used in class and during internal tests and mock examinations. For 25% extra time applications specifically, there is an additional requirement for a sample of internal tests and mock exam papers showing the application of extra time, alongside subject teacher comments confirming the need.
A thin file is not just a failed application. It is an inspection risk.
The irony
There is an irony in this. The schools most likely to have a thin file are not the ones that do not care about their pupils. They are the ones where the SENDCo is managing the largest caseloads under the most time pressure. The evidence exists. The problem is not that it was never collected. The problem is that collecting it once into a plan and then reconstructing it again for a Form 8 application is the same work done twice.
A SENDCo who has written a thorough DLP or ILP for a pupil, tracked their reviews, recorded their screening results, and maintained a history of provision already holds everything JCQ needs for Part 1. They just have to find it all again, synthesise it, and write it in a format JCQ will accept. For a secondary school with twenty or thirty access arrangements candidates, that is a significant hidden cost at an already pressured point in the academic year.
What would actually change this
What would change this is not a new process. It is a system that already holds the evidence — plans, screening results, staff observations, review history — and can pull it together into a structured, copy-paste-ready Part 1 narrative at the point of application, rather than requiring the SENDCo to reconstruct it from scratch each time.
The specialist assessment still requires a qualified assessor. Parts 2 and 3 of Form 8 still require the professional judgement and qualifications that no platform can or should replace. But Part 1 — the SENDCo's body of evidence — is a structured summary of information that already exists in any well-maintained inclusion system.
OMNIA generates that summary from the pupil's existing profile. The SENDCo reviews, edits, and approves it. Then copies it into AAO. It does not eliminate the process. It eliminates the two hours of reconstruction.
OMNIA Inclusion includes JCQ Form 8 evidence collation as part of the core platform — no add-on, no additional cost. Book a demo to see it in action