Experiential SEL for Private & Independent Schools
Build a school culture students can feel.
Creative confidence. Meaningful connection. Life skills practiced together.
Wicked Rae’s designs immersive social-emotional learning experiences for private and independent schools. Through tactile art, movement, rhythm, and collaborative creation, students practice making choices, navigating frustration, sharing ideas, and contributing to something bigger than themselves.
Seattle-based. Available for on-campus partnerships across the United States.
Recurring workshops • School culture pilots • Community art • Student, educator & family experiences
Your school's values deserve opportunities to become habits.
You want students to be curious, considerate, and willing to try. You want the new child to find a place in the group. You want an ambitious student to stay open when something does not go to plan.
Those qualities need opportunities to be practiced.
At Wicked Rae’s, a shared art project becomes a reason to listen. An unfamiliar material becomes a chance to experiment. A rhythm activity becomes a practice in noticing other people.
A student can try a different approach, ask for help, or make room for someone else’s idea.
This is where your school’s commitment to the whole child becomes something students get to do.
The Wicked Method™:
designed as one connected experience.
We bring expressive arts, purposeful movement, rhythm, sensory exploration, collaboration, and reflection into a deliberately designed sequence.
Students might shape textured materials, explore color, move through a cooperative challenge, create a shared rhythm, and contribute to a collective artwork. The materials and pace change. Your school’s learning goal connects the experience.
Explore.
Meet unfamiliar materials and possibilities.
Create.
Make choices, test ideas, and adapt.
Connect.
Listen, coordinate, and contribute together.
Reflect.
Notice what happened and where that skill matters next.
We design around the age group, your school’s priorities, and the ways students can participate.
The neuroscience behind multisensory learning
Minds, bodies, senses, and relationships belong in the learning experience.
Moving, handling materials, observing color, listening to rhythm, and making decisions draw on interconnected brain systems.
Our seven-part overview connects those functions to the experiences we design.
The point is what students get to practice: attention, choices, coordination, expression, and collaboration in a shared experience.
This is a simplified educational overview. Brain functions overlap across networks; the diagram does not represent measured activation in our participants.
What current research tells us
Play gives students a way to practice executive function.
Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child explains that games and playful activities offer opportunities to strengthen attention, working memory, and self-control.
Our design connection: Creative challenges include opportunities to pause, remember a sequence, choose, and adapt.
Read Harvard’s play guidance →
Group rhythm can create opportunities for cooperation.
A 2026 randomized study of 60 children ages 5–6 found improved cooperative task performance following an eight-week group music-game program. Follow-up was limited to one week.
Our design connection: Shared rhythm activities give students a concrete reason to listen, coordinate, and respond to one another.
Arts-based learning shows promise - and design matters.
A 2026 review of 27 studies across school and higher-education settings reported benefits including socially oriented wellbeing. A separate review of 34 studies involving children ages 6–12 found mixed outcomes and low or very low certainty for mental-health effects.
Read the student wellbeing review→
Read the middle-childhood review→
These sources inform our approach. They evaluated other programs and do not establish outcomes for Wicked Rae’s. Our school experiences are educational enrichment, not clinical treatment.
Start with your school’s goals. Build the right partnership.
Annual School Culture Partnership
For schools making creativity, connection, and SEL practice part of the year.
A coordinated sequence of experiences organized around your priorities. We can plan for the beginning of the year, key transitions, and a closing moment that brings the community together. The proposal defines the participants, cadence, creative experiences, classroom connections, and evaluation.
Focused School Culture Pilot
For a specific priority you want to explore thoughtfully.
A defined series for a class, grade, or cohort. Potential priorities include peer collaboration, new-student belonging, creative risk-taking, and engagement. Together, we identify what students will practice, how the school will observe it, and what would support continuing the work.
Signature School & Family Experience
For a meaningful first step or a community milestone.
A facilitated creative experience for students or families, designed around a clear purpose. Options can include grade-level enrichment, back-to-school connection, a creative field day, or a shared legacy artwork. A single experience can introduce the method and inform future planning. It does not promise lasting culture change on its own.
Educator and family sessions can be scoped alongside student programming.
Define success before the first paintbrush.
What matters most in your school: more students contributing, greater willingness to try, stronger peer collaboration, or a clearer sense of belonging?
For partnerships that include evaluation, we agree on the focus and collect proportionate feedback. Depending on age and scope, this may include student reflections, teacher observations, and agreed school or family feedback.
An evaluation summary can bring together:
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The activities delivered and skills practiced.
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Participation and feedback.
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Observed patterns and relevant limitations.
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Recommendations for the next phase.
Immediate enjoyment, observed behavior, and longer-term change are different kinds of information. We report them separately.
A useful partnership gives your school something to learn from as well as something to remember.
Thoughtfully facilitated. Designed with your school.
Wicked Rae’s was founded by Jules McVey and Oakley Rae, a mother-daughter team, bringing together a background in organizational psychology, phenomology, and sleep medicine with expressive art, fabrication, and immersive experience design.
We work with your school contact to plan the creative experience, age-appropriate participation, sensory considerations, and the practical needs of delivery.
We review space, access, scheduling, supervision, setup, cleanup, and any power or outdoor requirements before confirming the program. Large groups may need cohorts or rotations to preserve meaningful participation.
Students should have choices in how they participate. Sound, lighting, materials, pace, and lower-intensity alternatives are discussed during planning.
On-campus delivery means your students can participate at school, with travel and site logistics agreed in advance.
For parents: You want your child to be known, to find their people, and to keep trying when something feels unfamiliar. Our experiences create opportunities to explore those skills through making, movement, and shared participation.
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I saw shy kids become confident. I saw anxious kids relax. I saw kids who usually don't participate take creative risks. One 2-hour experience changed how they see themselves. That's powerful.
Michelle, 4th Grade Teacher, Bellevue School
FAQs
Q: What is an experiential SEL school partnership?
A: An experiential SEL partnership uses facilitated activities to give students opportunities to practice social-emotional skills. Wicked Rae’s combines tactile art, movement, rhythm, collaboration, and reflection around goals agreed with your school.
Q: How is Wicked Rae’s different from an assembly or an art workshop?
A: Our distinction is the integrated design of The Wicked Method™. We connect multiple creative and physical activities to a school-selected learning focus, with reflection and optional evaluation. The experience is designed for participation, not only watching a presentation or completing a craft.
Q: Do you work with private and independent schools?
A: Yes. We welcome inquiries from private and independent schools seeking purposeful creative enrichment, student connection, and ongoing school culture partnerships. We review fit, scope, and availability with each school.
Q: Can the program complement our existing SEL curriculum?
A: Yes. We discuss the language, competencies, and priorities you already use, then identify relevant activities and reflection prompts. Any curriculum mapping or educator support is defined in the proposal. Using CASEL’s framework does not imply CASEL certification or endorsement.
Q: Can you accommodate sensory sensitivities or different support needs?
A: We discuss participation needs with your school team before confirming the experience. Options may include adjusted sound or lighting, alternative materials, breaks, and different participation roles. We agree on what can be provided and what support the school needs to supply. Please do not submit individual student diagnoses through the inquiry form.
Q: Are these programs therapy?
A: No. Our school partnerships provide creative enrichment and experiential learning. We can coordinate with school support staff, but we do not advertise treatment for anxiety, ADHD, trauma, or other clinical conditions.
Q: Do you measure SEL outcomes?
A: Evaluation can be included in the partnership scope. We select relevant questions and observations with the school, then summarize feedback and patterns. Surveys do not measure brain activation, and immediate post-session feedback does not establish lasting change.
Q: Can we begin with one experience?
A: Yes. A purposefully designed first experience can help you assess participation, delivery fit, and interest in continuing. Recurring partnerships offer more opportunities for practice and follow-through. There is no established minimum of three Wicked Rae’s events that guarantees sustained change.
Q: Do you travel to schools across the United States?
A: Yes. Wicked Rae’s is based in Seattle and available for school partnerships across the United States, subject to scheduling and site requirements. Travel, freight where needed, setup, and delivery are scoped in your proposal.
Q: How many students can participate?
A: Capacity depends on ages, activities, available space, staffing, and schedule. For larger groups, we may recommend rotating cohorts. Tell us your expected participation so we can assess the right format.
Q: What happens to the artwork?
A: Depending on the agreed design, students may create individual pieces, a collaborative artwork, or a school legacy piece. Materials, finishing, display, delivery, and installation responsibilities are specified in the proposal.
Q: How much does a school partnership cost?
A: Partnerships are quoted according to the program, group size, facilitation, materials, customization, evaluation, and travel. Share your planning budget in the inquiry form so we can assess a realistic scope.
Q: What does the school need to provide?
A: The proposal identifies the school’s responsibilities, including an on-site contact, appropriate supervision, access to the agreed space, scheduling, and any required site resources. We clarify these before booking.
Let's build something that belongs in your school.
We work best with schools that value student participation, have a clear priority, and can commit a school contact and appropriate resources to the experience.