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I have asked around on this one but not yet got a good enough answer for me to move on this.
We (the school) want to give teachers going on a school trip a phone so they have a point of contact that is not their personal mobile. Often a few teachers and phones go on the trip and they want to stay in contact, by phoning each other and more recently by Whatsapp.
To date we have a lot of Tesco pay as you go phones but these are expensive for calls but more importantly only good for calling each other.
What phone will do Whatsapp and calls but not require the entry of personal information, the stuff you do when setting up your own phone?
Any android phone should be enough to setup a watsap account?
Most phones will ask you for a name, dob, etc, but there's nothing forcing you to be truthfull, you could be Dr Head Teacher, born 1st Jan 1900, the only other thing you need is an e-mail address for the confirm your identity step, but presumably you can generate a new one @schoolname.edu? Then just don't install anything other than watsap on the phone.
Literally any 'smart' phone.
However you are always going to need to have a Google account (or apple ID) on each phone in order to access the play store (or app store) to install WhatsApp.
That can just be a school managed Google/Apple account though (ie. just set some new accounts up head for those phones).
Then just get rolling 30 day SIM cards (or something like 1p mobile). If it's just calls and WhatsApp you aren't going to need much days at all so go for the leanest sim only deals.
+1 on set up a generic Gmail account, sign into any old Android phone with that and a 30 day SIM.
That then becomes the 'official' number for the trip(s) for parent and pupil contact.
Many outdoor centres do exactly this for staff.
I think you could run a fleet of android phones on a single google account assigned to the school. Whatsapp doesn't need anything other than your phone number and a display name (so "blue school phone"). Get whatever moto-e is cheap, then look at a pay-monthly with free EU roaming (if that's a thing for your trips) sim card with a small amount of data - should be £5 a month or so
I use a Motorola e20. Cost £80. I use it all year round on a daily basis to text and call parents. I work in an LA that uses Google infrastructure for education, so have a Google account associated with that. I NEVER sign in with my personal account. I load my work Google contacts with all the Parent contact details for the whole school, including the child's name, so it is super easy to call anyone. I am totally air-gapped from my personal life.
There was a forced disruption from the pandemic, but actually we have fully gone with it. In many instances text is a better method for communication and using Messages for Web I can do it from the PC screen, and copy and paste into Pastoral Notes.
Even with no credit a parent can read a text, whereas they cannot listen to a voicemail.
We have a pile of Motorolas in my college office for phoning parents. Works fine. Ideally we’d have one each for replies
Walke talkies?
apart from the cheap smart phone option, perhaps the whatsapp cable Nokia Brick/Feature phones would be ideal? long battery life and whatsapp installs without a specific account.
though as above generic google account and lots of phones logged into to the the same means managing school/pupil/teacher/staff info globally is easier and touch screens of even shite smart phone is nicer to use.