So.....will it be social death to start year 7 in September and not have a mobile phone?

I put DS on a £10 per month contract with Tesco which got him a decent Samsung (longer battery than Iphone). The advantage of Tesco is that you can stipulate a cap should they overrun data usage - DS's cap is £2.50 so if he loses it or it's stolen no big bill. He doesn't run out of data because at home & school he uses WiFi.

My dd got an old iPhone 4 in Y6 but she never used it (although all her friends did and were already on social media etc).

When she started Y7 last September the phone thing just hit her. It took her about 5 months before she asked for Snapchat. IME snapchat is how they keep in contact after school. FaceTime is popular too. Remember how we used to phone our friends after school even though we'd seen them all day?

It's a hard thing to learn, but my dd was careful not to 'name' friends on Instagram and Snapchat. There's a thing where people like to name friends on their bio and of course over the year peoples names get taken off and put on. It can cause huge upset. Dd was canny enough to not engage with that in the first place.

Quite proud of her really.

I agree, everyone has a phone in year 7..fwiw mine go to an independent school and many have iPhones but many, including my children, don't. Most have their parents old iPhone but we don't have iPhones, so just bought the kids cheap smart phones. Nobody cares.

Life will be easier for them to have a phone for all the reasons above. Dare I say it, depending on how affluent the kids are then anything less than an iPhone will be looked down on. Obviously If you can't afford this then they need to accept this. I personally love the fact that every day when I send my DC off to school I can use my find a friend app to see that they have arrived safely at school (train ride away). I can then relax until they leave at 3.30!

I second pp on using Life360 to see where your family are!

And buy a sim free smart phone and get a Giffgaff sim on a rolling monthly contract. No credit check, just choose your data/minutes/texts. My kids are on the £7.50 goodybag. I top up their ££ if we go abroad so they can text is necessary, but otherwise they mostly use it to text and on wifi in the UK.

My sons are 13 and15 and barely touch social media apart from the odd messages on snapchat or holiday snaps on Insta. Their female friends spends their lives on snapchat however. We also use Show my Homework app, and they sometimes use them at school to make videos for drama and English lessons.

I also expect them to keep up with the news and weather and manage their spending with their online banking apps. So smartphones are a priority here

Depending on school and DC personality. DS1's school require an ipad, so DS1 use his ipad for social media, he only has a basic phone for emergency. This worked out fine for him. Most of his friends have iphone, but he doesn't care much about it. And this didn't affect his friendship at all.

For DS2, I guess he would like to have things his friends have. As he does pay attention to what is popular.

Every child has one without exception at DS's school. He's not particularly tech minded and we didn't give it to him when he first started in Y7 but it became pretty clear that if he didn't have one he would be socially ostracised!

I think that it's inevitable and the sooner you start teaching her to use it responsibly and online safety the better.

My daughter has PAYG from 3. I'm surprised by how infrequently I need to top-up. She's not allowed to use it in school and at home she's on wifi so I suppose that's why.

I'm resisting this. Dd may get a cheapo for emergencies but I'd like her rl interpersonal skills to improve before she becomes a smartphone addict like the rest of us.

No. DS had a simple non-smart phone till the end of Y9. He has lots of friends who respect him and include him, a full social life in terms of parties, sleepovers etc and was not distracted by social media all the time. At the start of Y10 he was allowed one. He was glad not to be little and displaying a smart phone in the bus. 3 of his friends got mugged, one with a knife.

I would say that my son has not needed a phone this year. Just got to the end of year 7. We got him one (smartphone but nothing fancy) to stay in touch as he gets the school bus. He has used it once to tell us he missed the bus home in the first week. Other than that it stays in his bag.

However, this might be because he goes to a school where they are all expected to have ipads, and the ipads are used for lots of school related stuff, kahoot, homework, photos etc. (and playing games on the bus) so the phone is sort of redundant.

I also have a son who can't be bothered with social media. That may change in the future I realise.

You'll use shitloads of data if you have find my friends on, and it kills battery life.

To the pp who said not to use find my friends to track child- why not? My DD is 11, getting herself to school and various sporting events across London on buses. It's nice to be able to check where she is. She has no problem either. I wouldn't track my 18 year old, but 11 is very different.

Yes that's outright. You'd need a PAYG sim that's all.

Yes I agree with PP, smart phone needed at secondary, for photo of HW, kahoot, Snapchat... I am a teacher BTW.

I have the Alcatel a PP mentioned, £7.50 a month and kids think it's fancy lol (have you got a new phone miss? Oooh is it an iPhone?)

Fishy yes that's on contract so I guess there is a credit check.
The other option is something like sim free phone & giff gaff for texts & data (from £5 a month)

Is that outright titchy? We could get that one.

Same as pp I am blacklisted so couldn't get a contract/ on tick etc.

nancy75 would that have to be on credit?

When Dh had to give up his job to care for me and dd we got badly in to debt. We are out of it now thanks to family but wouldnt be able to get anything on credit.

We are on a very tight budget, we are not going to be able to afford that.

I'll just hope and pray this isn't happening on Dd's future school.

Alcatel sim free smartphone £20 in Argos.

DS (yr7) has got an Alcatel 4 too as have several of his mates.

shame you can get a smartphone at Tesco for £7.50 a month, it's not top of the range but that will give you enough texts/data for what they need. I don't think kids would be picked on for not having a phone but everything is on WhatsApp/text/Insta so they might get left out of what's going on. I don't think my Dd even knows how to use the home phone - actually making a phone call is an alien concept to her!

I would buy her a smartphone. Firstly because a lot of schools nowadays use apps for homework, revision, etc. And secondly because she'll be making new friends and will feel left out if she can't join in the conversations online. Teens nowadays live online, whether we like it or not, we're living in a digital world and have to accept that. Just make sure to set some ground rules and be clear you pay for the phone so have the right to ask to look at it if requested. And make sure you get a package with plenty of data or set a cap so she can't go over her limit!

Check the school's mobile phone policy first. DC's school have just started a ban on the use of phones in school unless a teacher gives permission in an emergency. All the parents are delighted, the DCs less so but they will get over it.

Sorry, I'm a bit worried now.

If the teacher is telling them to get it out and use it for school work homework, there's a class whatsapp group whatever...what happens with the dc who's parents can't afford a smartphone?

We definitely won't be able to, I'm quite worried now (though secondary is a way off)

Dd is already disabled, is this going to be one more thing she can be excluded from, picked on because of?