International award-winning children’s podcast The Rez, co-created by Sussex’s Professor of Podcasting Martin Spinelli and founded on research from the University, has launched two new lesson plans for PSHE teaching in primary schools throughout the UK.

Following workshops in schools in 2023, The Rez team learned from teachers that SEND-friendly resources were desperately needed. They worked with SEND specialists and the PSHE Association to develop resources to meet those needs. The new KS2 lessons for the classroom component of the sci-fi adventure series are designed to be used in both mainstream and special school settings.  

The PSHE Association introduced the lessons to schools by saying “the story and bright visuals will help you appeal to pupils’ imagination and explore the topic of kindness in a fun and engaging way”.

This follows on from The Rez’s ground-breaking PSHE Association accreditation in November 2022 to be used in primary schools as part of the personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) curriculum. Since then, The Rez PSHE lesson plans, produced in collaboration with Brighton-based children's advocacy company Make (Good) Trouble, have been taught in more than 150 schools in the UK and North America.

The Rez is devised by an international award-winning team of creatives, including Executive Producer Martin Spinelli, Professor of Podcasting in the School of Media, Arts and Humanities. Foundational research came from Professor Robin Banerjee as head of Psychology at Sussex, the Sussex CRESS Lab, and Dr Gillian Sandstrom, director of the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness.

Spinelli says, “We are in the middle of adolescent mental health crisis made worse by media designed to be addictive to children. SEND students are often hit the hardest by this and suffer in silence. We are delighted that we’re able to offer these new lesson plans as a research-based way of addressing the problem… that’s also very fun and funny!”

The Rez podcast series of 25 episodes across two seasons has more than half a million downloads. It charted in the Top 20 (kids' category) in the US and UK, and charted at number one across all categories in other countries. It has won or been nominated for a bevy of awards, including APA, ARIA, Webby, British Podcast Awards, and Signal Awards.

The Rez project, including the comics and teaching materials, has received funding from Arts Council England, the Arts & Humanities Research Council Impact Acceleration Fund (AHRC IAA), and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF).