Ipad purchase through currys

On the basis of your experience - and Apple’s policy of requiring an invoice with an imprint of the device serial number as a “proof of original ownership - if you believe it likely that you’ll need to call upon Apple’s assistance, then perhaps you should rely on a source that produces the paperwork that you’ll need.

However, with a properly set-up AppleID account - with multiple secondary (recovery) email addresses and trusted telephone numbers (a mix of mobile and fixed-line number being recommended), you should always be able to access/recover your AppleID and password.

Many retail receipts are printed on thermal paper that, very often, will often “fade” to the point of being useless at the point of need. As such, reliance on the physical receipt may be a fools errand.

My recommendation...

Keep you receipt, if you have one, in a cool dark place - but take the time to configure multiple recovery paths for your AppleID account. This account is the key to everything; look after it - and it’ll look after you.

Perhaps a better solution for you, that might afford a greater degree of protection, might be to consider using Family Sharing and Parental Controls.

If you son is under 13, you’ll have considerably greater control over the AppleID used by minors.

These support pages should be helpful in configuring and managing Family Sharing and Parental Controls:

Family Sharing - Apple (UK)

Set up Family Sharing – Apple Support

Use parental controls on your child's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch – Apple Support

Here is the corresponding section of the iPad User Guide for iPadOS:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/ipad/ipadacb14669/ipados