Thanks for the help all,
yep Chris , Michael and Wavy were spot on and it needed restore to default.
The IT guy at school said the same after he looked at it.
Wavy...I know the 1 to 5......but do you think you can tell that to
a kid!!
I know I have to stay up with it, and that's the hard part.
I hadn't done my own homework on what iCloud was all about so i had actually put him off for weeks about doing a backup.
It had sync'd itself to iTunes via its own Wifi to our home network on
the night of the very first switch on....but we had never backed up, only
sync'd.
It would not re-sync via that same Wifi..
Seems that the 1st night sync wasn't enough.
Anyway, restored to default now, downloading all of his school apps
(no charge) at the moment and the school IT guy will put as much of
his day to day school stuff back as he is able to.
Lesson learned by me, lesson learned by boy-child...I don't think so....
but at least next time I can be the hero, Wavy
thanks again all,
Steve