Labour leader Jerememy Corbyn has told teachers he will stand alongside them to fight the “ideological attack” of the government’s academisation policy.

He won a standing ovation at the NUT conference in Brighton this afternoon when he said that the plan to make every school an academy by 2022 amounted to a “process of assett-stripping our education facilities to be handed over to somebody else”.

“This an ideological attack on teachers and local parental accountability,” Mr Corbyn said. “It is about driving down [teachers’] pay, driving down terms and conditions and driving down standards.”

His short speech won enthusiastic applause from delegates. But ministers said Labour’s policies would threaten improvements in schools.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said: “It is disappointing - but not surprising - that the Labour Party has chosen to retreat into the fringes and is opposing all of our reforms over the last five years.

“Their plans would reverse the remarkable rise in standards across England’s schools since 2010, which has seen 1.4 million more young people in schools rated good or outstanding, and see a return to the days of declining standards, poor school discipline and low aspiration that typified the last Labour government’s attitude to education.”