Good, and the primaries are the reason. Two primaries in the area post solid maths results. Nine in ten graded schools across Kent are good or better. The secondary figure is the one that needs a closer look. Herne is a place where the school run starts well and asks harder questions at eleven.
The two mainstream state primaries counted in the area averaged a scaled score of about 107 in Key Stage 2 maths. Herne Church of England Infant and Nursery School and Herne Church of England Junior School carry the village's name and sit on its doorstep, which is exactly the sort of thing parents will pay a premium to live near and then insist was a coincidence. Hampton Primary School and Thornden Wood Primary School are among the other options around Herne, and the house hunt tends to bend around whichever one a family has already decided on.
At secondary level there is one mainstream state school counted in the area, with a pupil-weighted Attainment 8 score of about 37. Herne Bay High School is the nearby secondary, and it deserves its own research rather than a glance at the league tables over breakfast. The parents who read the results properly make the calm decisions. The ones who skip it tend to discover the details in the September of Year 6.
Ofsted has graded 221 of Kent's 245 inspected settings as good or better, which is roughly nine in every ten, and 38 of those are outstanding. At the other end, 21 were judged to require improvement and three inadequate. Those figures cover the whole county, not Herne alone, so they describe the system Herne children are admitted into rather than the schools on the next street. The county sets the odds; the individual school is still the one you have to check.
Living near a named school does not guarantee a place at it. Admissions run on the local authority's rules, and oversubscription criteria can split neighbours who assumed they were in the same boat. Check the admission arrangements for the specific school and year before an offer goes in, not after the solicitor has the deposit. The estate agent's "close to excellent schools" is a statement about distance, not about entry.
For families, schooling is one of Herne's real strengths, led by a village infant and junior pairing and backed by a county where most graded schools clear the bar. Read the secondary figure with care, and the rest takes care of itself.