Hoodies for Schools: samples
By The Velocity Wear Team
A school hoodie sample costs £150 and that fee is credited against the bulk order, so a cohort that goes ahead is not paying twice. Samples are never free. What you get is one finished garment in the chosen weight, fit and colour, with your artwork on it, which is the only honest way to judge a hoodie a hundred families are about to buy.
Why pay for a sample at all?
Because a school is spending other people's money. Parents pay in advance, the order cannot be unwound once it is in production, and a committee that approved a hoodie from a screen render has no answer if the fleece turns out thinner than the cohort expected. A physical garment moves that risk to a point where it costs £150 to fix rather than the whole run.
There is also a practical benefit. Having one hoodie in the staff room during size collection makes the split far more accurate, because pupils try it on instead of guessing. That alone often saves more than the fee in spare stock nobody wanted. Our schools and leavers page sets out what we need to produce one.
What should a committee check on the sample?
- 1Weight: does the fleece feel like the GSM you agreed, anywhere from 280 to 450, and is it what pupils were promised?
- 2Colour: hold it under the light in the hall, not in an office, because school lighting is what everyone will see it under.
- 3Print position: measure from the neck seam and compare it to the proof rather than eyeballing it.
- 4Spelling: read every name on the back list out loud, in pairs, with the register open.
- 5Fit: put it on someone the size of an average pupil in the cohort, not on an adult member of staff.
That fourth step is the one that matters most and gets the least attention. A misspelled surname on a leavers hoodie is permanent and personal, and the sample is the last moment it costs nothing to correct. Checking against the register rather than the typed list catches the errors that were introduced when the list was typed.
How does a sample fit the timeline?
It sits before the 10 to 15 working day production window, not alongside it. Producing and shipping a sample, then giving the committee a week to look at it and sign off, adds real time to the front of the project. Plan for it in the same way you plan the size collection, and the date is safe.
Schools that approve a sample quickly tend to have decided in advance who signs. Naming one person, usually the head of year, and giving them a deadline turns a two-week drift into a two-day decision. The wholesale hoodies page has the garment options to agree before the sample is made, and AI mockups versus physical samples explains what a render genuinely cannot show you.
Can the sample be used after approval?
Yes. Most schools keep it as the size reference during collection and then either display it at a parents evening or hand it to the pupil who helped design it. It is a real garment from a real run, so it wears exactly like the rest of the order.
What it should not be used for is a second round of design changes months later. If the artwork moves after approval, the sample no longer represents what will be produced, and a fresh one is worth the fee rather than a guess.
