Mobile phone plan for a 10-11 year old?

[ChristmasTidyings]

What data, call and sms allowances do you have on your DC's mobiles? We took the lowest for DD, she has a prepaid with 10 MB/month data. This is eaten up just by the basics of running the phone when she's out and about (system services), she hasn't been actively using her data and she's only taken her phone out a couple of times in the month. I've turned mobile data off for now.

She will soon start to go by bus alone to one of her clubs and I want (her) to be able to:
check the bus time table in the app
track where she is

i.e. I need to leave mobile data running when she's out and about. How much data do you think she would need for this?

The next prepaid plans are 40MB, 200MB, 400MB.

Do you have the option to add data if needed?

No, not as a block. It charges 25p/MB if she were to go over the allowance (doesn't warn you) or I can logon to the account and pay the monthly fee to "restart" a new month. It's all a scam!

£8 a month with giffgaff which gives 5GB. DC11 barely uses SMS or phone minutes.

None of what you quote is enough. DC11 uses somewhere between 3-4GB a month. She used to be on 2GB but she used that before a month is up.

10Mb is a tiny amount. If she were to receive 2-3 photo messages it would be gone.

DD has what I thought was a very small data package (2Gb). She's warned to save it for emergencies and not to use her phone much when out and about. She generally just uses location services, iMessage (mainly texts but some photos) and a few WhatsApp messages (but she's not allowed her phone switched on in school so these are only generally on the bus to / from school which is about 15 mins each way). Occasionally she'll quickly Google something or use the maps or check the weather. We're rural so the reception isn't good enough for her to try and stream music or watch YouTube etc. Typically she uses 1.5Gb / month.

DS2 is 12 in year 7 and he has unlimited data/calls/texts for £10 from Tesco mobile.
He probably uses about 5gb a month as he spends all his time on FaceTime with his mates after school, chatting about absolutely nothing.

I found 10g more than enough. It's also useful for when we're travelling in car etc so they can watch films.
Tesco do a £10 SIM card for this.
The reason we do sim only is that the bloody phones get cracked soooo often- it is cheaper to buy a second hand phone!

My son has Smarty which I highly recommend

the 4gb for £6 is plenty for a teenager

That's pure extortion tbh. Not just the prices but how little you get, and the very high risk of extra charges. No idea where you are, but it's ridiculous that they get away with it.

I'm £9 a month for 30GB on smarty for ds phone