First mobile phone for 11 yr old- help!

[HelloMama]

Our DS will be starting high school in September and will be travelling across the city to get to school. For this and other reasons, we want to get him a mobile phone to use.

He has the actual phone already (one of our old ones) and has been using Whatsapp etc over the summer via wifi to keep in touch with friends. Now we need to sort the sim.

We don't want to spend over £10 per month and ideally want it to be capped, so that in the unlikely event he downloads some kind of online game or app or something, we're not going to be faced with a £1000 bill.... I'm thinking Pay As You Go option is likely to be best? He's actually very sensible, so I think this is unlikely BUT we live in the real world and I know high school is going to test everything we already know...!

What experience do wise mumsnetters have? What networks / sims do your kids use for their phones? What rules do you have with phones in your house?

Any help will be much appreciated!

Dd has a payg phone. It's a Huawei one. She's on a plan with GiffGaff. I used to pay so much a month for so many minutes, texts but she wasn't using it all. So I stopped that and now I just do auto top ups when she needs it but the top up is capped so it won't pay more than £10 a month.

Exactly same situation here. In the end I went to the car phone warehouse and they were really helpful and not pushy. I ended up with a good deal I hope with an iPhone 5c and iPad mini. He has unlimited phone calls and texts and 2 GB internet data per month, on EE so it is capped. I have set it up so it is linked to my iPhone and he has to ask me for my password to download apps etc. I thought 2GB would be huge (I have 1 GB and went to 80% in my first month) unfortunately he went through his 2 GB in 1 day for the last 2 months either at a friend's house or in the car watching YouTube. I was pretty crossed as now he won't be able to search the Internet in the tube on its way to school for his first few days. I have told him to use Wifi only for videos and keep his 4G for "useful" things like Citymapper etc.

Tesco does one for less than £10 a month with plenty of minutes and texts but no data. This is what we have done for our two younger ones, who are about to start Y7.

When they are at home they can access our wi-fi, which has parental controls on it. Out and about they can just do without for now.

We did the same with the older two and started paying for 3G when they were 13.

Thank you everyone. I think the no data idea is a good one TheSecond, as just like TooOld explained, I'm worried about him using all the data allowance very quickly.

On my phone I only read the papers on the way to work and check FB and maybe Pinterest or Mumsnet, so my data usage is always about 500GB per month. However I know they'll all be gaming online and watching YouTube on the school bus and that just eats up data. My worst nightmare as I said in my OP is getting an unexpected megabuck bill because he 'accidentally' downloaded something or other without even realising.

I read somewhere that you can get a plan that can be capped, so once the data runs out, thats it until next month, but now I don't seem to be able to find the info. Perhaps if we get the basic text minutes PAYG bundle, he could always top that up with data from his own money? Is that a reasonable compromise?!

Ds has a Vodafone smart first 6 phone it was £35 on amazon it's not fantastic but ideal as a 1st phone. I buy him £10 payg bundle each month 150 mins 500mb Internet and unlimited texts so at least if he's ran out of mins he can also get hold of me or his Dad via text

All my dc have had PAYG as long as I've been paying for them. My elder dc is 16 and starting 6th form and is still more than happy with it.
She uses wifi and WhatsApp or Meesenger when she is at home (or, in all honesty, quite a lot of places when she is out), and talks to her friends when she is with them so doesn't use her phone then. If they want me or dh, then they do the "3 rings" thing and we phone them back.
£10 credit lasts them about 18months or more - can't see the point in getting a contract.

A warning on letting 11 year olds have data: DD's friend accidentally went over her data allowance this week. She managed to get through an extra £40 worth in a couple of hours before the phone company suspended the account. Unfortunately her older brother and her mum both have mobiles on the same account, both of which suddenly went out of action.

My son is 11 and going up to senior school too. We bought him a second hand iPhone 5 for his birthday, and put a pay as you go sim card in it. He gets a GiffGaff 'goody bag' its £12 per month on pay as you go and he gets 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 3gb data.

We got dd a Vodafone contract with loads of minutes and texts and as it was on dp's account got a reduction in the monthly cost. She hasn't gone over data and they didn't cap it but you can download an app and monitor it and cap it if it's getting close. We live in a rubbish area for data anyway so she mainly uses wife anyway.

Tesco allow you to cap the bill so you can't use more data but can still make calls and send texts