Alan Sennit Upstander's Leadership Programme ASULP 2025

As a school we are proud to have 10 students from Year 10 who have been picked to be a part of the Alan Sennit Programme after going through an application process. During the programme the students have attended 4 day long seminars, including hosting the last seminar at Copthall school. The students have met young people from other schools and have learnt about their backgrounds.

The ASULP team has delivered three key milestones on their journey:

An assembly to year 8 outlining their project plan–which was well received by staff and students.The team worked together to organise a whole-school raffle, delivering their messages at form time, break time and also assemblies.  Their hard work and commitment paid off, raising enough funds to produce individual care packages for the year 6 curriculum event.

The student’s leadership skills flourished when they took part and supported the first transition programme at Copthall School, supporting the current year 6 students.  The curriculum event was a success, the students produced a great interactive workbook focusing on friendship and well-being.  Also the individual care packages were well received.

They have all grown in confidence throughout the program, and I am really proud of their commitment, resilience and continuous passion for the ASLUP from start to finish.

Lastly, the students presentation speech were very well received at their graduation evening on the 3^rd July, well done everyone!

Ms Powell

The following speech by Wun Yee Chan (Andrea)

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We are Copthall School and today we are going to share our Alan Senitt journey with you. Have you ever wondered how change really happens? We see it all the time nowadays, protests for women’s rights, raised awareness for the discrimination of marginalised groups in society, and of course, the never-ending fight for the conservation of our planet. But did you know that, behind every social movement, there is a powerful force: people who choose to care. 

At Copthall, we are empowered to be change-makers, leaders, trailblazers, paving the path for our future generations. We believe the first step towards achieving societal justice and equality is to educate. That is why our project objective is to raise awareness to our youth about discrimination and empowering them to become compassionate and courageous upstanders. 

To put this into action, we decided to hold a workshop with a group of Year 6 students and provide them with care packages. In order to raise awareness about our project, we carried out two assemblies in March for our Year 8 and Year 9 cohorts. Then, we organised a raffle event to fundraise for our care packages. The assemblies and the fundraiser were effective in generating interest and engagement for our project from our school community. After that, we started creating care packages and resources for our workshop. These packages contained stress toys and stickers with inspirational messages to promote mindfulness and positivity. We also designed a booklet with information about discrimination, online support services such as Childline, and advice on how to be positive role models in our community. 

Throughout our journey, we had several failures and successes. Initially, we set out to help homeless people in our local community, however, we struggled with logistical issues and were unable to carry it out. Furthermore, we found that attendance was sometimes inconsistent, and not everyone had the chance to fully share their thoughts. This led to unequal amounts of contributions between team members. Despite these challenges, we experienced many successes. Our team were able to engage in positive discussions, coming up with a range of creative and impactful ideas. We also remained organised, creating agendas and notes for each meeting. Both our failures and successes helped us grow as individuals and as a team as we were able to learn from them and ultimately carry out our workshop with great success. 

We held our workshop in April to a group of 20 students. In our workshop, we had fantastic discussions about the effects and methods to challenge discrimination. We were able to foster a safe space where everyone’s opinions were valued and respected. We gave the students an opportunity to share what they’ve learnt creatively through posters, poems, and even role plays. We found that these individuals were not only able to gain knowledge but could also share meaningful insights and develop empathetic attitudes. We hope that our younger year groups will carry this program forward to our wider community and we will be supporting them so that our message continues to inspire and make a lasting impact.

This just goes to show why educating our youth is so important. If a group of 11-year-olds can show such compassion and empathy, why can’t our governments? The Alan Senitt program has taught me so much about being an upstander and speaking out when I see injustice. I’ve learnt valuable leadership and communication skills that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Most importantly, it has given me the courage and ambition to take action and encourage others to do so as well. I truly believe that change starts with us. All of us. Regardless of our class, age, gender, or ethnicity. We all have the responsibility and power to make the world a better place. Finally, to quote Nelson Mandela, “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Thank you so much for listening and we hope you enjoyed our presentation.