Lead Times Schools Should Plan For

Production takes 10 to 15 working days from the moment artwork is approved, and delivery transit is added after that. For a school the approval step is the variable one, because a design usually passes a head of year, a business manager and sometimes the pupils themselves. Budget three to four weeks end to end and you will not be caught out.

How long does a school order actually take?

Split it into three parts you can each put a date on. Approval covers everything up to the moment the artwork is signed: gathering the logo, agreeing the wording, locking the name list. Build is the 10 to 15 working days we quote. Transit is the shipping leg, which varies by destination across the UK, USA and Europe.

Schools tend to estimate the middle part accurately and the first part optimistically. A fortnight is a realistic allowance for internal sign-off in term time, and rather more if the decision touches a governor.

Which term dates should the order be counted back from?

Not the end of term. Count back from the day the kit is handed out, which for leavers is usually a fortnight before the last day so pupils can wear it and sign it. For a sports tour or an open evening it is the event itself. Fix that date first, then subtract transit, then subtract 15 working days, then give yourself the approval window.

Half term is the trap in that calculation. Working days inside the factory carry on, but your own sign-off chain stops dead for a week, so an artwork query raised on the Friday before half term costs you five days you did not budget.

Put the handover date at the top of the email thread and keep it there. Everyone involved then argues about how to hit it rather than about whether it is realistic, and the business manager has a single number to protect when somebody suggests a design change in week three.

What delays a school order most often?

Name lists. A leavers run cannot start until the list is final, and there is always one pupil whose surname is spelled two ways across the school system. Lock the spelling before you send the artwork rather than correcting it afterwards, because a change at that point restarts approval.

The second is the logo file. A crest pulled off the school website will not print cleanly at chest size. Ask the office for the original vector at the same time you ask for the budget. The broader picture is in apparel production lead times explained.

Can a late order still make the last day of term?

Sometimes, if the artwork is clean and nobody changes their mind. The build runs at its normal speed whether you are early or late; what a late order loses is the room to fix anything. A school that orders with four weeks in hand can absorb a revision. A school with twelve days cannot.

If the date is genuinely immovable, order a sample early, approve on the sample, and keep the design simple. The schools and leavers page lists the items we build most often for term deadlines, and the wholesale range shows what else can join the same run.

The other lever a school controls is how many designs it is running. One design approved on time beats two designs where the second is waiting on a decision, because the second holds up nothing except itself but absorbs all the attention. Split them into separate orders if one is ready and the other is not, and let the ready one start building.