Less waste.
More play.

Play doesn’t have to cost the earth.

With Schools facing continuous cuts, battling with historic deficits and recovering from the pandemic, children more than ever need a rich start to their education.

The Sample Project aims to support primary schools who are struggling to provide affordable continuous provision within their early years settings, using discontinued or out of season material samples. Every year, interior designers throw out tonnes of end-of-season samples from luxury fabrics to elevator door samples.

About the founder

Sophie is a teacher working in an inner London state school. One evening she went to her husband’s work - at an architectural studio in Brixton - and was amazed by the golden tiles and velvet fabric catalogues, mesmerised by the metal circles and vibrant floor samples. All of these treasures were sitting in an enormous bin ready to be thrown away. One industry’s trash, is another’s treasure!

She rescued everything she could possibly fit into her bag and strapped it to her bike, to take to her classroom. It was then that she thought of the potential relationship between design practices and schools. Sophie has been amazed by the feedback from schools who have received The Sample Project’s boxes and how versatile, effective and open-ended the resources can be.