Outstanding teachers from London have been drafted in to help improve Medway’s primary schools.

They will be working with 13 schools in the Towns. Most have been rated as ‘requires improvement’ by the education watchdog Ofsted but other schools involved are rated good but may need help in specific areas.

The aim is to help improve standards of leadership and teaching by sharing expertise and good practice.

The schools involved are:

• Swingate Primary, Chatham
• Oaklands Primary, Chatham
• Hoo Primary
• Luton Infants
• Luton Juniors
• Burnt Oak, Gillingham
• Wainscott Primary
• Cedar Primary, Strood
• New Road Primary, Chatham
• Featherby Juniors, Twydall
• Greenvale Infants, Chatham
• St Peter’s Infants, Rochester
• Delce Infants, Rochester

The London heads all have National Leader in Education status, a scheme which sees the leaders of schools rated as outstanding by Ofsted support schools in challenging circumstances, in addition to leading their own school.

They will be paying regular visits to the Medway schools and taking part in training to enable school leaders here to drive progress.

The Medway head teachers will also travel to their respective outstanding schools as part of the programme.

The buddy programme is part of the Towns’ Get Medway Learning campaign which aims to improve standards after Medway came joint bottom in the country in tests for 11-year-olds.

Last year’s Key Stage 2 results showed Medway was joint bottom in the whole country with Poole in Dorset. Just 73% of pupils reached the level 4 benchmark, compared with 80% in Kent and nationally.

The campaign also includes a push on recruiting more outstanding teachers and getting more passionate school governors on board.

Cllr Mike O’Brien, who is in charge of education, said of the buddy scheme: “This is a really big and important step in the teaching strand of the Get Medway Learning campaign.

“Not only do we want to recruit outstanding teachers, but also allow our already good teachers and leaders to access advice and gain tips from the very best."