This article considers the methods and difficulties of establishing, sharing and applying assessment standards within module teams working in a business school. Against a background of increasing reliance on explicit knowledge to establish standards in the HE sector the study looks at ways in which staff within module teams attempted to reach a common view of assessment standards through sharing tacit knowledge in order to make consistent judgements about student work. In so doing it identifies and questions the assumptions, myths and beliefs that bolster the culture around standard setting and marking/grading. The paper questions whether academic communities of practice provide an adequate framework to support the sharing of assessment standards. In particular it argues that the scholarship of assessment would support the development of a specialist assessment and assessment standards discourse within communities that could, in turn, support the sharing of assessment standards.