I have a student doing grade 2 and doing Deutcher However, she has quite small hands and really cannot manage to hold down E at the bottom while playing the chords at the top. Would it be ok to use the pedal to hold down the E at the bottom for a complete bar everytime the E has to be held down. (There are 3 bars where this happens)

I think I've read somewhere recently in the piano syllabus that candidates with small hands can miss out notes in chords etc if the result is still musical.

Others will, I'm sure, correct me if I'm wrong, but my daughter did something similar for her Grade One a couple of years ago. There was no possibility of her using the pedal to help as her feet were about six inches above them. ( Luckily I have regular access to the premises used for our local exam centre, so she was able to practice clambering up onto the piano stool! )

Just check with your local representative if you're not sure.

I would concentrate on acheiving a musical perfomance overall and if that means not holding the low E don't get too bogged down by it. Sometimes introducing pedalling near the exam can cause additional stress that you don't really want!

Good luck.

I'm sure in my graded piano music years ago there was a note on a piece which had octaves in it that younger candidates would not be penalised if they could not reach the bottom notes.