The Howard School

If you want your son in a school that holds firm boundaries and clearly cares about the boy behind the grades, The Howard School on Derwent Way in Rainham is worth a close look. It takes boys from eleven to sixteen, with a sixth form that girls join too, and it works as a bilateral school. That means two routes in: a grammar stream for boys who sit the Medway eleven-plus and are suited to that pace, alongside non-selective places offered through Medway's usual secondary process. The school grew out of a 1975 coming-together of Rainham Boys' Secondary and Gillingham Boys' Grammar, and it still carries that mix today, setting out to give every boy a solid academic grounding and the room to grow as a person.

What parents tend to notice is the warmth underneath the discipline. The Howard is the only secondary in Kent or Medway to hold the UNICEF Rights Respecting Gold Award, which puts children's rights at the centre of how it plans and behaves, and pastoral care is treated as a real strength rather than a slogan. Day to day, expectations are clear and steady, and there is a genuine range of clubs, sport, music and trips, from cricket and the House Championship to international visits, so a boy can find his thing and stick with it.

Led by principal Mr Johal and part of The Howard Academy Trust, it suits a boy who does well with structure and encouragement in equal measure, and who will take up what is offered rather than coast. Many staff have chosen The Howard for their own sons, which tells you something. It will suit a family who wants a caring, ordered school close to home where their boy is known, supported and expected to do his best.