Organising leavers apparel for your Class of 2027 comes down to four decisions: which garments, what goes on the back, which colours, and which decoration method. Get those four things locked in early and the rest, sizing, payments, delivery, takes care of itself. Leave them until Term 4 and you’re negotiating with a supplier with no room left for the changes your cohort will inevitably want to make.

This guide walks a first-time coordinator through that process, in order, with real garment options and real decoration costs.

Key Takeaways

• Appoint one coordinator and start in Term 1 of the graduating year.
• Choose your decoration method before finalising the design, it changes what’s achievable and what it costs.
• Decoration minimums vary by method; embroidery generally has a lower minimum than screen printing or sublimation, better suited to smaller cohorts.
• Decoration costs and artwork setup fees vary by method, colour count and cohort size, confirm current figures directly rather than relying on published numbers.
• Confirm names and sizes through your cohort’s online store, and approve the rendered design proof (GLOS) before the order goes to production.

Who Should Run This, and When to Start?

One person or a small student leadership team should own this, not an open committee. Most schools assign it to a Year 12 coordinator, a deputy principal, or the student leadership team acting on the cohort’s behalf. Start in Term 1 of the graduating year. Design approval, name collection and production all take genuine time, and personalised orders can’t be rushed the way a plain bulk order can.

7 Steps to Organising Your Cohort’s Leavers Apparel

1. Appoint one coordinator. A single point of contact for design approval and supplier communication avoids the back-and-forth of decision-by-committee.
2. Set a budget per student first. This determines which garments and decoration methods are realistically on the table before anyone starts designing.
3. Talk to your supplier about decoration methods early. Embroidery, screen printing and DTF (heat transfer) each suit different kinds of designs, and a good supplier will work with you to recommend the best fit for what you actually want on the back, rather than making you lock in a method before you’ve designed anything.
4. Choose colours that read as “leavers,” not just “school.” More on this below.
5. Collect names, nicknames and sizes through one system, ideally a password-protected online store set up for your cohort, rather than a scattered mix of spreadsheets, forms and emails.
6. Approve a rendered design proof (what AESS calls a GLOS) before the full order goes to production. Check names, colours and placement carefully at this stage, since it’s the sign-off point.
7. Ask about the ideal cut-off date for pre-orders. Turnaround depends on order size and decoration method, so confirm the latest date you can place your cohort’s order and still have it delivered before your final day.

Choosing the Garments

Most cohorts don’t order just one item. A typical order mixes a hero garment with one or two cheaper add-ons:

• Varsity jackets are the biggest-ticket item and the one students actually keep. Best suited to cohorts with a bit more budget, or ones supplementing school fundraising with a per-student contribution.
• Rugby jumpers sit a step below varsity jackets in cost but carry a similar “letterman” feel.
• Hoodies are the most common all-rounder, cheaper, worn constantly, and easy to personalise on the back.
• Polos suit cohorts wanting something smarter for a formal or presentation night rather than everyday wear.
• Singlets and caps are usually add-ons rather than the main garment, useful for keeping a lower-budget option available alongside the main jacket or hoodie.

AESS supplies all of these (rugby jumpers, varsity jackets, polos, hoodies, singlets and caps) as Australian-made or overseas-made options, printed in-house at their Adelaide factory and delivered Australia-wide, with dedicated school shops serving South Australian and Western Australian schools directly.

Custom Back Designs: What’s Actually Possible

The standard leavers back design is the graduation year (commonly styled as the two-digit year, “27”) with each student’s name or nickname underneath. Some cohorts add a house or team motif, a school crest reworked for the year group, or a shared slogan above the names.

What decoration method you use changes what’s actually achievable on the back of a garment. AESS works with you to recommend the best method for your specific design rather than expecting you to choose one upfront:

A one-time artwork setup fee may apply depending on your chosen design and decoration method. Minimum order quantities also vary by method, embroidery generally has a lower minimum than screen printing or sublimation, which can make it more workable for a smaller senior cohort, but confirm exact minimums when you enquire.

Pricing, minimum order quantities and artwork setup fees all vary and can change, so rather than working from published figures, request an itemised quote based on your cohort’s exact size and design.

Choosing Colours That Work

A few practical guidelines coordinators tend to land on:

• Use your school colours as the base, but make the leavers piece visually distinct from the everyday uniform, a different garment colour, a contrast trim, or an inverted colour scheme all signal “this is the leavers one,” not just another jumper.
• Check your colour choice against your decoration method. Screen printing and embroidery both need enough contrast between the garment and the ink or thread to stay legible; a dark navy design on a dark garment can disappear.
• Confirm your final colours on the rendered design proof, not a screen guess. A colour rarely reads on-screen exactly the way it will on fabric, so check it carefully at the GLOS approval stage.

Collecting Names, Sizes and Payments

With every garment personalised, the logistics matter as much as the design:

• Use a password-protected online store for your cohort where possible. AESS can set one up so each student enters their own name, nickname and size directly, which cuts out the relay-of-information errors that come with spreadsheets and group chats.
• Use a proper size chart, not self-reported “usual size.” AESS provides sizing kits schools can use to check fit against actual garments before the order is finalised, which is more reliable than guesswork.
• Decide your payment collection method up front, whether that’s a per-student contribution collected by the school, a separate school fundraising allocation, or a mix of both, before you’re partway through an order.

FAQs