OXFORD: Under-pressure failing academies are excluding naughty pupils in a bid to boost standards quickly, an Oxford academic has claimed.

Professor Alex Hill, from Oxford's Centre for High Performance, said they were paying other schools to take away disruptive children.

He was speaking at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, where he presented the findings of a three-year study into how to turn around failing academies.

It was based on information gathered from 160 academies that had all been put into special measures.