Had a good look at the Lenovo S6000-10.1 especially now the price is down to £169 in Currys, PC World etc. IPS screen is good and it seems to run all the basic stuff my daughter would need well. The rear facing speakers put me off a bit and also, neither I nor the shop assistants could figure out how to alter some of the settings such as screen sensitivity and some others, Lenovo seemed to have locked many of them down so I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has one about that. Was concerned about the quality and responsiveness of their servicing arrangements in the UK too and some potential bugs, after reading up on their forums.
So in the end I went for a (currently £199) Acer Iconia A3-10 sold by Argos, which appears to have identical insides and screen to the Lenovo but with side facing speakers and a better sound system internally, as well as an easy to navigate and pretty standard Android O/S with all the settings available. Will have to order a bespoke case online though after Christmas as most of these 'independent' Androids are poorly served by the big stores on cases and other accessories. The Acer itself is working well so far under test, like the Lenovo it allows usb PC connection, SDHC connection and even has a mini HDMI socket you can plug unto the TV and watch stuff on there, haven't tried that yet. Good sound quality too on the ol' headphones, love the way it tries to stop you raising the volume above the "safe" level.