Are schools giving Level 5s earlier?

[push-pull-mum]

When DD (now Year 9) was in Year 4/5 she spent a lot of time hovering around the 4a mark. I remember going into school to ask how she could be getting top marks for effort and progress on her reports when she had only advanced 1 subsection in 18 months.
DS is now in Year 5 and level 5s across the board and I would definitely say that he is no better than she was at Maths and I would say his written English is significantly weaker.
I cannot help but think that this is the result of the introduction of the Level 6 test in Year 6?
Anyone else noticed a similar trend? Real world friends with multiple children agree with my theory ....

[yoyo123]

Schools should be moderating their levels, as a school and between similar schools. Levelling writing is notoriously difficult.