Strong, and the paperwork agrees. Nearly every graded school in the borough is good or better. The village primary is a short walk away. Secondary school means a bus or a lift. Cliffe's schools are a reason to move here, not a thing to put up with.
Around here there are 2 mainstream state primaries, and their pupils average about 103 on the Key Stage 2 maths assessment. St Helen's Church of England Primary School, Cliffe is the one carrying the village's name, and Cliffe Woods Primary School serves the neighbouring village up the road. Two schools is a small base, so a single strong or weak year group can move that average more than any change in teaching. Treat it as a reading of the room, not a league table.
The wider Ofsted record is where the confidence comes from. Across Medway, Ofsted has graded 37 of 40 rated settings good or better, which is nearly all of them, and 4 of those are outstanding. Of the rest, 1 requires improvement and 2 are inadequate. Those counts cover the whole local authority, not Cliffe alone, and a further 47 settings hold no published grade yet. The 3 below the line are exceptions a parent should check for, not the pattern a parent should expect.
Naming a school on a property page does not get a child into it. Admission runs on the council's rules for the year you apply, and no house listing, however confident the estate agent's font, comes with a place attached. Check the admission arrangements for the specific school before you fall for a kitchen. Buyers who skip that step tend to learn the rules from a letter in spring, which is the least pleasant way to learn anything.
For secondary, Leigh Academy Hundred of Hoo is the school on the peninsula, and the modelled journey from Cliffe to the nearest secondary is about 18 minutes by car, 33 by public transport and around 105 on foot. That last figure is less a walking route than an endurance event. The primary years are local; the secondary years are logistics. Higham Primary School and the other primaries dotted across the peninsula give families a spread of options within a short drive, but which one a child attends is the admissions process's call, not the postcode's.
Cliffe's schools are one of its real strengths, with a borough record most places would frame and put in the hallway. The only homework for buyers is the admissions small print and the secondary school run.