Custom Sportswear for Schools: A Guide to Sports Day & PE Uniforms

Ordering sportswear for a school is a different job to ordering for a club. Instead of sizing 20–30 players who’ve already been measured for boots and pads, you’re sizing an entire cohort — anywhere from 200 to 2,000 students, aged 5 to 18, across a dozen body shapes per year level. And instead of one order, most schools need at least two: an everyday PE uniform that has to survive a full year of wear, and a sports day or house/faction shirt that only comes out once or twice a year but has to look sharp in every photo. This guide covers what to order, how to size a whole school without measuring every student, and how to plan budget and timelines so the kit lands before the date you need it.

What schools typically order

Most school sportswear orders fall into three categories. The first is the everyday PE uniform — polos or tees and shorts, usually in house or school colours, worn weekly across the year and built to handle a school laundry cycle. The second is sports day or faction/house wear — coloured shirts for four or more houses, typically ordered once for the year and worn for a single event, where visual impact matters more than long-term durability. The third, for schools that field interschool teams, is representative or travel wear — a step up in quality, ordered in smaller runs for students who make a school team.

Some schools also add reversible bibs for indoor sports, event-day tracksuits for cooler mornings, or bucket hats for sun-safety compliance during outdoor sports day activities. It’s worth listing every garment type you need in one go — bundling them into a single order with your supplier usually gets you a better price break than ordering each piece separately across the year.

Sizing a whole school, not just a team

Sizing 30 club players individually is manageable. Sizing 800 students by name is not. The practical approach most schools use is a size run by year level: rather than measuring each student, you order a spread of sizes based on typical builds for that age group, distribute through classroom teachers or year coordinators, and run a swap period in the first week for the inevitable mismatches. Your supplier should be able to provide a size chart matched to student age brackets, not just adult small/medium/large, and should offer unisex cuts as standard so you’re not managing separate boys’ and girls’ size runs for the same garment.

For garments students will wear all year — PE polos in particular — build in a bit of growth room, especially for younger year levels ordered early in the year. A shirt that fits perfectly in February and is uncomfortably tight by November means reorders mid-year, which is more expensive and harder to time than getting the size right the first time. If you’re also choosing new house or school colours as part of this order, it’s worth planning colours that photograph clearly against grass and asphalt and reproduce well across embroidery, print and sublimation — something our team colours guide walks through in more detail.

Choosing decoration that survives a school year

Decoration choice matters more for schools than almost any other buyer, because school sportswear takes harder wear than most adult teamwear — worn several times a week, washed constantly, and subjected to grass stains, monkey bars and contact sports. For everyday PE kit, embroidery is usually the more durable choice for logos and school crests that need to last a full year of washing. For sports-day-only house shirts, that durability requirement drops away — since the garment might only be worn once, screen print or sublimation can deliver bolder house colours and bigger graphics at a lower cost per shirt, without the wash-durability concerns of a daily-wear item.

Budgeting and approvals for school orders

School purchasing usually moves through a longer approval chain than a club committee — a P&C, school council, or business manager sign-off, sometimes alongside a uniform shop that handles distribution and payment collection from families. It’s worth separating your budget conversation into two lines: everyday PE uniform, which the school or uniform shop typically funds and resells at cost or a small margin, and sports day shirts, which many schools run as an opt-in order collected directly from families closer to the event.

Whichever model you use, build in lead time. From art approval to delivery, expect a minimum of four to six weeks, and longer during peak periods — Term 1 for start-of-year PE kit, and Term 3 for spring sports carnivals, when suppliers are working through orders from multiple schools at once. Locking in your order date as soon as your sports day or term-start date is confirmed avoids a last-minute scramble.

A step-by-step ordering process for school coordinators

1. Confirm size numbers by year level. Pull rough headcounts from enrolment data rather than individual measurements, and order a size spread per year group.
2. Set colours and decoration. Lock in house or school colours and decide embroidery vs print based on how often each garment will be worn.
3. Get a quote and internal approval. Submit the order for school council or business manager sign-off — the same structured approval process a club committee follows works well here too, as covered in our guide to ordering custom teamwear for your club.
4. Approve the art proof. Check crest placement, house colour accuracy and sizing labels before production starts.
5. Confirm delivery ahead of your date. Build in buffer time before term start or sports day, not right up against it.
6. Distribute and hold buffer stock. Keep a small reserve of common sizes on hand for growth, damage or new enrolments through the year.

Get your school’s order moving

Whether you’re ordering everyday PE kit, sports day house shirts, or both, our team can help you size a whole cohort, choose decoration that will actually last, and plan a timeline that gets everything delivered before the date you need it. If your PE and training shirts also need a refresh, our custom training shirts range is a good place to start.

Request a schools quote to get your sizing and timeline sorted.