State secondary schools in Medway
20 schools · South East · 2024/25 Department for Education figures
Medway has 20 state secondaries, 19 of them with sixth forms, 6 grammar schools among them. 80.4% of families got their first choice last year, worse than most of England. Results run from 11.4% to 93.5% passing English and maths, a spread of 82 points, with a middle school at 32.4%, below England's 45.4%.
Of those Ofsted has graded, 2 rated Outstanding, 9 Good, 2 Inadequate. 7 schools carry no overall grade at all — either inspected since Ofsted stopped issuing one in September 2024, or never inspected.
Medway against England
State-funded schools, 2024/25
Getting a place
2026/27 secondary admissions round, across Medway
80.4%
Got their first choiceof those who applied
England 84%
93.9%
Got one of their threefirst, second or third
0%
Got no offer at allfrom any preference
28%
Appeals upheld135 of 489 heard
These are figures for Medway as a whole. A popular school can be much harder to get into than the average suggests, and the criteria that decide it are set by each school's own admission authority rather than centrally. How applying works
How much the choice matters here
Across Medway's 18 schools, the share passing English and maths runs from 11% to 94%. That is a spread of 82 percentage points, wider than most councils.
The typical council spans about 48 points. Where schools are close together the school a child gets matters less; where they are far apart it matters a great deal. The widest spreads are all selective areas, where grammar schools sit at one end and everything else at the other.
Medway schools, subject by subject
The share reaching grade 4 or above, among schools entering at least 20 pupils. Which pupils take a subject differs a lot between schools, so read this as what happened rather than as a ranking of teaching.
- 1 The Rochester Grammar School Rochester · 225 entries 98%
- 2 Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School Rochester · 216 entries 98%
- 3 Fort Pitt Grammar School Chatham · 147 entries 98%
- 4 Rainham Mark Grammar School Gillingham · 234 entries 96%
- 5 Holcombe Grammar School Chatham · 150 entries 96%
- 6 Chatham Grammar Chatham · 151 entries 95%
- 7 The Howard School Gillingham · 268 entries 79%
- 8 Leigh Academy Hundred of Hoo Rochester · 253 entries 73%
- 9 Rainham School for Girls Gillingham · 268 entries 71%
- 10 Leigh Academy Strood Rochester · 223 entries 64%
- 11 St John Fisher Catholic Comprehensive School Rochester · 173 entries 54%
- 12 The Thomas Aveling School Rochester · 216 entries 54%
- 13 Brompton Academy Gillingham · 215 entries 52%
- 14 Greenacre School Chatham · 152 entries 49%
- 15 The Victory Academy Chatham · 210 entries 48%
- 16 The Robert Napier School Gillingham · 173 entries 45%
- 17 Walderslade School Chatham · 129 entries 45%
- 18 Waterfront UTC Chatham · 73 entries 32%
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Every school in Medway
Medway is a separate local authority inside Kent, so schools in the surrounding county are not in this list. See Kent.
3 of 20 have no spare places. Sort the list, or narrow it first.
- Brompton Academy Gillingham · Inspected, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 25%
- Attainment 8
- 38.1
- Absence
- 27%
- Chatham Grammar Chatham · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 76%
- Attainment 8
- 61.8
- Absence
- 9%
- Fort Pitt Grammar School Chatham · Outstanding.
- Eng & maths
- 85%
- Attainment 8
- 65.9
- Absence
- 13%
- Greenacre School Chatham · Inadequate.
- Eng & maths
- 17%
- Attainment 8
- 29.8
- Absence
- 31%
- Holcombe Grammar School Chatham · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 85%
- Attainment 8
- 62.4
- Absence
- 10%
- Leigh Academy Hundred of Hoo Rochester · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 39%
- Attainment 8
- 43.2
- Absence
- 26%
- Leigh Academy Rainham Gillingham · Good.
- Eng & maths
- —
- Attainment 8
- —
- Absence
- 19%
- Leigh Academy Strood Rochester · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 23%
- Attainment 8
- 41.2
- Absence
- 29%
- Maritime Academy Rochester · Inspected, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- —
- Attainment 8
- —
- Absence
- 25%
- Rainham Mark Grammar School Gillingham · Good. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 87%
- Attainment 8
- 62.7
- Absence
- 9%
- Rainham School for Girls Gillingham · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 30%
- Attainment 8
- 44.3
- Absence
- 24%
- Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School Rochester · Outstanding. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 94%
- Attainment 8
- 69.5
- Absence
- 6%
- St John Fisher Catholic Comprehensive School Rochester · Inspected, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 32%
- Attainment 8
- 40
- Absence
- 18%
- The Howard School Gillingham · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 33%
- Attainment 8
- 45.2
- Absence
- 18%
- The Robert Napier School Gillingham · Inspected, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 16%
- Attainment 8
- 32.5
- Absence
- 32%
- The Rochester Grammar School Rochester · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 92%
- Attainment 8
- 68.4
- Absence
- 7%
- The Thomas Aveling School Rochester · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 26%
- Attainment 8
- 41.3
- Absence
- 23%
- The Victory Academy Chatham · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 22%
- Attainment 8
- 35.5
- Absence
- 25%
- Walderslade School Chatham · Inadequate.
- Eng & maths
- 11%
- Attainment 8
- 29.9
- Absence
- 34%
- Waterfront UTC Chatham · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 20%
- Attainment 8
- 30
- Absence
- 30%
Pick up to 4 schools to see them side by side in the comparison tool, subject by subject.
Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
A levels in Medway
17 of Medway's 19 sixth forms publish A level results. Ranked on the share reaching AAB or better in at least two of the subjects universities name, which is the measure the steepest entry requirements are written in.
- Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School Rochester B- 28%
- Rainham Mark Grammar School Gillingham B- 15%
- Fort Pitt Grammar School Chatham B- 11%
- Holcombe Grammar School Chatham C+ 10%
- St John Fisher Catholic Comprehensive School Rochester D+ 7%
- Chatham Grammar Chatham C- 5%
- Rainham School for Girls Gillingham C+ 5%
- Brompton Academy Gillingham C- 0%
- Leigh Academy Hundred of Hoo Rochester D+ 0%
- Leigh Academy Strood Rochester D+ 0%
- The Howard School Gillingham D+ 0%
- The Robert Napier School Gillingham E+ 0%
- The Thomas Aveling School Rochester C- 0%
- The Victory Academy Chatham D 0%
- Greenacre School Chatham C —
- Walderslade School Chatham C —
- Waterfront UTC Chatham C —
A level results only. A sixth form running mostly BTECs and other applied courses will show a dash here and can still be the right one — those are graded on their own scale, where a distinction and an A grade carry the same points and mean different things.
Bordering Medway
Near a boundary, schools on both sides are usually in reach. Whether a child can apply is set by each school's admission criteria, not by the border.
What these mean
- Attainment 8
- The average pupil's total score across eight GCSE-equivalent subjects, with English and maths counting double. It is scored out of 90. A score of 50 is roughly equivalent to achieving a grade 5 across eight subjects.
- Grades 4 and 5
- GCSEs are graded from 9 down to 1. Grade 4 is a standard pass and broadly corresponds to the old grade C; grade 5 is what the government calls a strong pass. Grade 7 is broadly equivalent to an old grade A.
- Persistent absence
- The share of pupils who miss at least 10% of their possible sessions during the school year. This includes both authorised and unauthorised absence, so illness and other authorised reasons are included. Persistent absence has remained substantially higher than its pre-pandemic level.
- First preference
- The share of families who were offered the school they ranked first on their application, on national offer day in March. This figure is calculated across the relevant schools or admissions authority, so a high overall figure does not necessarily mean that every individual school is easy to get into.
- Spare places
- The amount of available capacity a school has compared with the number of pupils on roll. This is different from oversubscription: spare places measure whether a school has capacity, whereas oversubscription describes demand for places exceeding the number available. A school with no spare places may be popular, but a small school can also be full without receiving a large number of applications.
- Average A-level grade
- The average grade achieved across students' A-level entries. This is different from measures such as the proportion achieving AAB or better in two or more facilitating subjects, which are sometimes used to indicate higher attainment and university-entry performance.