An Ofsted inspection team has left Medway after an unprecedented blitz of 10 schools in one week.

It came after Medway’s primary schools were deemed the worst in the country and was designed to test how schools are relating to Medway Council.

All 10 inspections were routine visits due this year, but were timed together to analyse how the schools are relating with the council. Ofsted has refused to name the schools involved, despite the fact that the reports will be published at a later date.

These will include the date of the inspection, meaning parents and the wider public can then work out the names of all the schools for themselves.

A letter outlining Ofsted’s findings about schools in the Towns will be sent to the council, schools and made available to the public in about a month.

The inspections included secondary schools but focused mainly on primaries, where results are worse.

Heads were given just a few hours notice.

Medway Messenger understands two of those visited were Chatham Grammar School for Boys and the Bishop of Rochester Academy.

If the inspection reports reflect badly on Medway, the area could become Britain’s first to receive a council area-wide inspection designed to bring Medway Council’s strategy up to scratch.

Medway’s schools chief Cllr Les Wicks (Con) was recently sacked and replaced by Cllr Mike O’Brien (Con) and a member with special responsibility for school improvement, Cllr Kelly Tolhurst (Con).

Last summer 28% of Medway’s Year 6 pupils failed to reach the recommended level 4 in English and maths – worse than any other council area.

Twenty-nine of Medway’s primaries – two in every five – are ranked “requires improvement” or “inadequate”, accounting for nearly 8,000 pupils.

One head teacher said some schools, including his own, were unfairly lumped in with the 29 deemed less than good.

Horsted Junior School was named as one of 29 by Ofsted but last summer its results were the fifth best in Medway.

Walderslade Primary School was also named and now has the seventh best results in Medway.

It comes because some inspections were two or three years ago. Some schools also gained a grade which was called “satisfactory” at the time, but that category has now been replaced with “requires improvement”.

Horsted head teacher Steve Geary has written to reassure parents. He said: “I think every school should be treated on an individual basis because things do change ever so quickly.

“Some schools have maybe 30 children, and if you get three or four that are struggling it skews the statistics and you come out looking quite poor where really you’ve done what you can.”