The Department for Education (DfE) has launched a staunch defence of the government's ambitious academies policy after a research expert suggested that the schools were benefitting from encouraging young people to study 'lesser' GCSEs.

According to school improvement expert Dr Terry Wrigley, as many as 68 per cent of academies rely more heavily vocational GCSEs than the average state school.

However, a spokesman for the DfE has hit back, saying that the vast majority of academies in these statistics are "sponsored academies transforming previously underperforming schools and serving some of the most deprived communities".

Initially, therefore, he said that these academies concentrate on improving the basics.

"However, if you look at the major sponsors," he explained, "there is a clear trend that once academies have been opened and established they move to more academic subjects."

In fact, the spokesman said that academies' results were improving faster than the national average.