What phone can I give my child going into year 7?

[icantwaitforsummer]

Hi all, my son starts secondary in September and I want to get him a phone. For being able to check he navigated the bus and short walk to school and for emergencies.

But I don't want him to have access to social media just yet or free internet use for a couple of years.

Is there a particular make and model you recommend for youngsters first phone?

Or is there an app or way to make it so his phone is just for calls and texts unless he is at home and internet can be more safely monitored? ^

I have an old iPhone but how do I make that a bit more limited?
^

I don’t know the details, unfortunately, but I recently went to a talk at a local secondary school by the Smartphone Free Childhood group. They mentioned that in perhaps 5 months or so, a new brick phone is going to be coming on to the market which will do the things you mention but won’t allow access to the internet or social media. I didn’t get the name of it, unfortunately, but some more knowledgeable posters may be able to point us in the right direction?

These are the alternatives recommended by Smartphonefreechildhood https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/alternatives

I've got my kids one of these which come highly recommended

www.hmd.com/en_gb/nokia-2660-flip?sku=1GF011IPJ1A05

With an Asda no data sim.

We gave our son an old iPhone but with the regular parental control settings you can remove safari, YouTube, the App Store etc etc. meaning all it had was the bus app and WhatsApp. But you could remove WhatsApp too of course if you wanted

Asda Talk and Text is £4 a month, no data, no contract. Easy to set up and parent can manage via the app.

Why don't you get a refurbished phone and set it up with parental controls. On DD's phone we can set time limits, check what she is searching for and how long she's spending on what apps. It can also be set up to need parental permission to download any apps so he wouldn't be able to get any social media apps.
I also know her password for her phone.
It's a refurbished iPhone 8.
I would recommend you allow whatsapp though or he will miss out a lot on communication with friends and making arrangements to meet up etc.

I've been through all of this and back again to try and figure what first phone to get DS at age 10 - he'll be bussing it to school and staying after for sports so want it for communication. After nearly buying a Nokia we decided to resurrect an old iPhone 6s I had. Old work phone I didn't have to hand back so not worth anything really. We replaced the battery and it's working fine. We'll give him minimum access to everything. Just needs phone, SMS, few games and music to listen to on the bus really.

Get him a refurbished one and if he complains then explain that you are testing him. If he can show you that he can look after a rubbish phone then he will get a better phone in the future. If he can’t take care of it why would you invest in a more expensive model?

Thank you so much for all of your advice.

I think to maybe using the old phone we have and just putting the restrictions and the Asda SIM in it will be a good idea.

Do you restore the phone and set it up brand new with a new Apple ID etc?

And I can put the bus app and WhatsApp on it, then delete App Store so it won't have anything else?

Apologies for lack of knowledge here phone tech is not my thing!