Ordering Joggers for Leavers Season
By The Velocity Wear Team
Leavers joggers should be ordered in spring, well before the last half term. The build is 10 to 15 working days once artwork is approved, and a school order carries two extra drags on the calendar: names and sizes collected from teenagers, and a sign-off that has to pass through a department. Miss the date and the garment arrives after the year group has left.
When does the order actually have to go in?
Work back from the day the joggers are handed out, not the last day of term. Leave a fortnight for sorting into name order and dealing with anything wrong, then subtract transit, then the 15 working day end of the production window, then the artwork round trip. For a June handover that puts the order in April at the latest, and the data collection in March. Schools that hit the date every year do the sizing sheet first and the design second.
What does putting names on them do to the schedule?
It turns one artwork file into as many files as there are pupils, and every one of those is a chance for a typo that cannot be fixed after printing. Names are normally done with DTF so each garment can carry different text without new screens. Ask for it to be quoted as a line of its own, lock the spelling list on a stated date, and have one member of staff check it against the register. The personalised list is the thing that arrives late, not the garments.
Is each year group a separate order?
If the artwork differs, yes. The floor is fifty pieces per design, and a change of year, colour or crest is a different design with its own fifty. A school running two year groups and two colours is four runs of fifty. Keeping one shared design and varying only the personalised name is far cheaper, because the base artwork stays put. Pricing at the fifty-piece minimum starts at $22 a piece on our wholesale joggers page, dropping through the tiers to as much as 35% off at the largest quantities.
How should a school collect sizes?
With a form that closes. An open sign-up that runs until the week before ordering is how schools end up with twelve extra smalls and no extra larges. Publish a size chart with actual measurements, set a deadline, and order a small overage in the middle sizes for the pupils who miss it. Open hems reduce the number of returns because they do not have to fit an ankle. There is more on building a size run in apparel sizing and fit.
Is it worth ordering a sample first?
For a first-time order, yes. A sample costs £150 and is credited against the bulk order, and it lets the person signing the purchase order see the fabric, the cut and the print before committing school funds. Order it alongside the quote in March so it never sits on the critical path. Our samples page covers what is included, and print sizes are worth settling at the same time using print placement on joggers.
Allow time for the handover itself. A personalised order arrives as fifty or a hundred garments that all look alike until somebody reads the name on each one, and sorting that during a form period does not work. Ask for the delivery to be packed in a way that helps, count it against the register the day it lands, and bag each garment with its name visible. Schools that plan the distribution as carefully as the order are the ones where nobody goes home with the wrong pair.
