I moved down to the South Hams in 2000, though have since moved back up north with my husbands work. My children went to Modbury Primary School, which was excellent. They went to three different primary schools (in different areas) and by far their favourite was Modbury. Mrs Thong who is the Head Teacher is fantastic, by far the best Head Teacher I've come across. I did also consider Newton Ferrers/Noss Mayo but was not impressed by the school buildings but they have since had a brand new school built. We didn't actually live in Modbury as it is a bit pricey and also the people who owned the house we were renting wanted it back and gave us two months notice so we had to find somewhere else and fast. We ended up living in Ivybridge which I know is a larger town than Modbury but we still enjoyed it there. I know that Modbury is classed as a town but it has the same number of residents as the village I live in now! It is a friendly place and has all the local amenities you could need, with Ivybridge and Lee Mill (for Tescos) not too far away. Modbury school also serves quite a large area including Bigbury, Bigbury on Sea, St Annes and Kingston, there are school buses. Having said all that somewhere I hadn't even considered when we were moving down there and I didn't visit until living in Ivybridge was South Brent, though with hindsight I do wish I'd looked into it as I always thought it was a nice place.
How old are your children? Mine were years 2 and 4 when we moved down there and one thing I did think about was Secondary Schools, both Modbury and Newton Ferrers feed into Ivybridge School which is quite large, but all the children I spoke to enjoyed it there. It is also worthwhile considering your childrens social lives as living in too small a place may mean there aren't any other children living locally and you will be constantly ferrying them around.