The schools are the best reason to buy in Rochester. Almost every graded school in the area is good or better. There's a choice of grammar schools. Primary maths results give parents something to mention at the school gate. The castle gets the tourists, and the school results bring in the families.
There are 27 state primary schools in the area, and their pupils averaged 104 in the Key Stage 2 maths assessment. That score gives parents very little to complain about, which parents here will count as a loss. The primaries in and around the old town include St Margaret's at Troy Town and Rochester Riverside Church of England Primary School. The second one is new enough that its name tells you where the new houses went.
The 8 state secondary schools in the area averaged an Attainment 8 score of 53. Medway still runs a selective system, like much of Kent, so an exam at eleven sorts out a lot of families' next decade. The grammar schools include The Rochester Grammar School and Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, which was founded in 1701 to teach navigation to boys. The council calls its non-selective schools secondary schools rather than secondary moderns. That's a tidier label for the same split, and parents understood the split long before anyone renamed it. St John Fisher Catholic Comprehensive School and Leigh Academy Strood fill out the picture. St John Fisher is named after the Bishop of Rochester whom Henry VIII executed, which makes most detentions look reasonable.
Ofsted has graded 37 of the 40 rated settings good or outstanding, which is nearly all of them. That count covers the whole Medway local authority, not only Rochester. Four are outstanding, one requires improvement and two are inadequate. Another 47 settings have no published grade yet, which tells you nothing either way.
A school's name on this page is not a promise of a place. Admissions follow the council's rules and the schools' own criteria, and the grammar schools add an entrance test on top. Plenty of buyers pay extra to live near a school and then find out that living near it and getting a place are different things. Check the admissions arrangements for the exact address before the offer goes in, not after the move.
Schools are Rochester's strongest suit. Families who get the admissions right will find very little to worry about.