Not sure at all that this is the right forum, and apologies if I sound a bit naive but I am still at the VERY stupidly-early stages of child rearing. However I am concerned about this and was hoping to get some opinions.
We live in an 'army' village but are not army - there are only 4 private houses on the garrison and we have one of them. The infant/primary school in our village is therefore populated by children of serving soldiers (the other 3 private houses having no children within them).
I'm a little worried that my child will automatically be swept up into the most local school i.e. the Army one. The worry isn't snobbery - I know there's some really good army schools (my DH is ex-army and lots of our friends' kids are therefore educated within that system) but more to do with socialisation. My child's friends would be moving away every 2 years or so, and I'd really like it if my child could at least have a chance of making some lifelong friends at an early age - I never had this myself and it is one of my biggest regrets.
I wondered if anyone can give me any pointers or their own experience as to whether my worries are founded or not. We love where we live and don't really want to move but maybe we should consider this now rather than when it's too late? Or will the powers-that-be take into account that we're not in a Married Quarter and allow my child to go to an alternative school?
Again apologies for this probably very naive post, I have zero experience of the school system yet.