Team Kit Sizing for Schools and Academies in Egypt: Ages 4 to 16

Ordering kit for a whole squad is two jobs, and almost every school and academy in Egypt treats it as one. The first job is commercial: who supplies it, what the minimum order is, how long printing takes, what it costs per child. The second job is measurement: working out which of thirty-two children takes which size, and getting that right the first time, because a squad order does not come with individual exchanges.

This article is only the second job. The commercial side — pricing, minimum order quantities, lead times, printing and supplier selection — is covered properly in our bulk ordering guide for school and academy sports uniforms, and that is the piece to read when you are ready to place the order. What follows is what has to happen before that: how to measure twenty to forty children without errors, how to read the size distribution you end up with, how much growing room to allow across a season, what to do about the children at either end of the squad, and exactly what to confirm on the size list before it leaves your hands.

Everything here is for ages four to sixteen. That is the full Anja range — there is no adult, men's or women's line — and the size bands are 4-6, 6-8, 8-10, 10-12, 12-14 and 14-16 Years.

Why Sizing a Squad Is Different from Sizing One Child

When you buy for one child you can hold the garment against her, send it back, or let her grow into it. A squad order removes all three of those.

You cannot hold it against her, because the kit does not exist yet. You cannot send one back, because the order arrives as a batch against a list you signed off. And you cannot let a child grow into it, because the squad has to look like a squad on the first fixture, not in March.

That changes the whole method. Sizing one child is a judgement. Sizing a squad is a data exercise: you take the same measurements the same way on every child, you write them down in a form you can re-read six weeks later, and you convert them to sizes in one sitting rather than child by child. The errors that ruin squad orders are almost never errors of judgement about one child. They are transcription errors, missing children, and two coaches measuring in two different ways.

The Three Measurements That Decide a Team Kit Size

You need three numbers per child, and only three. Adding more slows the session down and does not improve the result.

Chest, measured around the fullest part with the arms down. This sets the top size — jersey, training tee, tracksuit jacket. Take it over a single thin layer, not over a hoodie, and keep the tape level all the way round. A tape that rides up at the back reads two to three centimetres short, which is enough to drop a child a band.

Waist, measured at the natural waist, not where the child's own trousers happen to sit. This sets the bottom size — shorts, track pants. Children pull their waistbands low, so the number you want is higher up than where you find the elastic.

Height, standing against a wall with shoes off. This is the cross-check. Chest and waist decide the size; height tells you whether the length will work, which matters on a full-length track pant and on a long jersey on a small child.

Our kids' sportswear size guide gives the band ranges those three numbers map to, and it is worth having it open on a phone during the session rather than converting from memory.

Measuring 20 to 40 Children in One Session Without Mistakes

A squad measuring session that goes wrong goes wrong in a predictable way: it starts well, loses discipline around child fifteen, and produces a list with three names missing and two sets of numbers that cannot be right.

Run it with two adults, not one. One measures, one writes. The person measuring never writes, and the person writing never measures. That single rule removes most transcription errors, because the measurer says the number out loud and the writer repeats it back before it goes on the sheet.

Measure in register order, not in the order children arrive. A squad list in register order can be checked against the register at the end in thirty seconds; a squad list in arrival order cannot be checked at all.

Keep the tape in one place and use one tape. Two tapes in a session means two slightly different readings, and a cloth tape that has been stretched reads long. Use a fresh cloth tape, and if you only have a metal builder's tape, have the child hold it and read it level rather than pulling it tight.

Measure over the thinnest layer available. A session run in December over fleece tops produces a squad that is one band too big across the board, which is the most common single failure in Egyptian academy orders because the measuring tends to happen in the cold months.

The Reusable Anja Team Measuring Sheet

The sheet is the deliverable, not the measurements. Build it once and reuse it every season.

One row per child, in register order, with these columns: shirt number or register number, full name, date of birth, chest in centimetres, waist in centimetres, height in centimetres, top size, bottom size, and a notes column.

Fill the three measurement columns during the session and leave the two size columns empty. Convert all of them afterwards, in one sitting, with the size chart in front of you. Converting as you go is where inconsistency creeps in, because the person converting gets faster and less careful as the session wears on.

The notes column is where the order is saved. It is where you write "very tall for age", "between bands, went up", "left-footed goalkeeper, wants longer sleeve", "parent asked for one band up". Six weeks later, when a jersey does not fit, the notes column is the only thing that tells you whether it was an error or a decision.

Add two summary lines at the bottom: a count of children measured, and a tally of how many take each size. The count is checked against the register. The tally is what you actually order from, and it is the line the supplier needs.

The Size Distribution Problem in a School Year Group

Here is what surprises people the first time they tally a squad: the sizes do not spread evenly, and they do not centre on the age.

A single-age group of thirty children does not come out as thirty of one size. It typically comes out across three bands, with roughly half in the middle band and the rest split unevenly either side. An under-12 squad will usually land mostly in 10-12 Years with a real tail in both 8-10 and 12-14, and the tail is almost never symmetrical.

A mixed-age squad is worse, and most Egyptian academy squads are mixed-age. A group spanning two school years spreads across four bands and sometimes five, and the modal size may not be the one the age suggests at all.

Two practical consequences follow. The first is that you cannot order a squad as "thirty mediums"; you order against the tally, every time. The second is that the spread itself is information: a squad sitting in four bands needs more spare stock than a squad sitting in two, because a four-band squad has more children sitting close to a boundary.

Where this bites hardest is 12-14 and 14-16 Years. Two fourteen-year-olds in the same squad can genuinely be two bands apart, and 14-16 Years is the largest band Anja makes, so a child at the very top of the range has nowhere above to go. Measure that end of the squad first, while everyone is still patient.

Growth Allowance Across a Season, by Age Band

A season in Egypt runs roughly September to May, and children grow through it. The question is how much of that growth to buy in advance, and the answer is different at each end of the range.

For ages four to eight, growth over a season is real but the garments are small, so a single band is a large jump relative to the child. Size to fit now. A four-to-six-year-old in a 6-8 Years jersey is wearing a tent, and a tent is a trip hazard on a pitch.

For ages eight to twelve, size to fit now on tops and allow a little room on bottoms. This is the band where a season's growth is most likely to cross a boundary mid-year, so note the children who are already near the top of their band and plan to replace those few in January rather than oversizing the whole squad in September.

For ages twelve to sixteen, growth is fast and uneven, and this is the only band where buying a size up is sometimes right — but only for a child whose chest measurement is already within a centimetre or two of the next band. For everyone else, fit now.

The rule that holds across all three: never oversize a whole squad to cover growth. A squad ordered one band up to "last the year" is a squad that looks wrong in every photograph for nine months, and the children who needed it were a handful you could have identified from the sheet.

Allow room on bottoms before tops. A track pant with a drawstring absorbs a band of growth; our Boys Athletic Track Pants have a drawstring waist for exactly that reason, and it is the single most forgiving feature in a squad order. A jersey has no equivalent adjustment.

Handling the Outliers at Both Ends of a Squad

Every squad of twenty-five or more has two or three children who do not fit the pattern, and they are the ones who decide whether the order is remembered as a success.

At the tall end, the child measures above the squad's top band. If she measures into 14-16 Years, that is the largest band available, so the answer is to confirm the measurement rather than assume a bigger size exists. If she is genuinely at the limit of 14-16 Years, say so to the school before the order goes in, not after it arrives.

At the small end, the child measures a band below everyone else. The temptation is to round her up so the order is tidier. Do not: the smallest child in a squad wearing a jersey a band too big is the most visible fitting error on the pitch.

Then there is the between-bands child, who is the most common outlier of all. For a top, go to the smaller band if her chest measurement is in the lower half of the overlap and she is not about to grow; go up if it is in the upper half. For a bottom, go up, because a drawstring takes care of it.

Goalkeepers are a special case worth noting on the sheet. A keeper wearing padding under a jersey needs the top measured over that padding, and a keeper in long sleeves and long bottoms in a squad otherwise in short sleeves is a separate line in the order. Our piece on kids' football jerseys covers the fit differences that apply to the keeper specifically.

Sizing Tops and Bottoms Separately for the Same Child

The assumption that quietly breaks squad orders is that each child takes one size across the whole kit. A large minority do not.

It is entirely normal for a child to take 10-12 Years on the top and 8-10 Years on the bottom, or the reverse. In a squad of thirty you should expect somewhere between a quarter and a third of the children to need different bands top and bottom. If your tally shows every single child on one size for both, the measurements were not taken independently, and somebody converted the bottom from the top size rather than from the waist reading.

So keep the two size columns genuinely separate on the sheet, and order against two tallies rather than one. Browse our sports uniforms range with that in mind, because tops and bottoms are sized and ordered as separate lines even when they are worn as a set.

Shorts, Socks and Training Tops: Where Sizing Behaves Differently

Not every item in a squad order carries the same sizing risk, and knowing which ones are forgiving lets you spend your attention where it matters.

Shorts are the most forgiving item in the kit. The waist is elasticated or drawstring, the length is not critical, and a band either way is wearable. If something has to be approximated under time pressure, approximate the shorts.

Socks are sized in broad ranges and rarely cause problems; order by shoe size range, in one colour, and order more than the headcount because they disappear.

Training tops sit between the two. They are worn loose, so they tolerate a band of error, which makes them a reasonable place to put the growing room for a child you expect to grow. Our Girls Basic Sporty Kids T-Shirt is cut for that kind of everyday training wear rather than a close match fit.

Match jerseys are the least forgiving, because they are the item everybody looks at and the item the squad is photographed in. Our article on training kit versus match kit explains why the two sets are worth sizing with different levels of precision, and the practical upshot for a sizing session is simple: if time is short, measure carefully for the match kit and accept approximation on the training kit.

What to Confirm Before the Team Kit Order Goes In

This is the last checkpoint, and it takes fifteen minutes. Every item on it is something that has gone wrong on a real squad order.

Confirm the headcount on the sheet matches the register, by name. Not the total — the names. A squad order that is one child short arrives one child short.

Confirm the date on the sheet is less than six weeks old. Older than that on an eight-to-twelve squad and you are ordering against numbers that have moved.

Confirm the tally adds up to the headcount, twice: once for tops, once for bottoms. If the two tallies total differently, a row is incomplete.

Confirm every child near a band boundary has a note saying which way you went and why. That is what you will be asked about.

Confirm whether any child was measured over a thick layer. If the session was in December, this is the check that saves the order.

Confirm the spares. Order two to three spare tops in the squad's modal size, and one in the band above it. Squad orders need spares for the child who joins in October and the jersey that gets torn in November, and a spare ordered with the batch costs a fraction of a reorder. For football squads specifically, our football range is the place to check what the squad's modal size is actually available in before the tally is final.

The Anja Team Sizing Checklist

• Take three measurements per child only: chest, waist, height.
• Two adults — one measures, one writes, and they never swap roles mid-session.
• Measure in register order, in one session, over the thinnest layer available.
• Use a single fresh cloth tape, kept level all the way round.
• Write the date at the top of the sheet.
• Record measurements during the session; convert to sizes afterwards, in one sitting.
• Keep top size and bottom size as two independent columns and two independent tallies.
• Expect a quarter to a third of the squad to need different bands top and bottom.
• Expect a single-age squad to spread across three bands, and a mixed-age squad across four or five.
• Size to fit now for ages 4-8; fit now on tops with a little room on bottoms for 8-12; size up only the near-boundary children at 12-16.
• Never oversize a whole squad to cover growth.
• Note every between-bands decision, every outlier and every goalkeeper.
• Measure the oldest and tallest children first, while patience lasts.
• Check names against the register, not totals.
• Order two to three spares in the modal size and one in the band above.
• Have a second person read the sheet before it goes to the supplier.

Frequently Asked Questions