ABSTRACT
The innovative practices of the 1960s and onwards had taken little account of the way in which musical achievements could be measured and reported, and these practical changes had occurred simultaneously with developments in the national assessment framework. The debate over the desirability of assessment in the arts appeared to reach its peak with the development of the General Certificate of Secondary Education in the mid-1980s, which was intended to bring the previous systems of 16+ examinations together across the curriculum. If the General Certificate of Education reforms were intended to resolve the problems of music examinations, it appears that they were largely unsuccessful, retaining as they did the misconception that music at examination level was appropriate only for selected candidates. The election of a Labour government in 1964 encouraged the demise of the ‘academic’ superiority of the grammar schools, supporting the interest in the average and less able pupil that had been shown by the Newsom Report.
