What is the SHED?

The School Hub Engagement Database (SHED) emerged from the need for my long-term music hub client, London West Music Hub, to gather provision data from across its five constituent music hubs and services, then collate it in the exact form required by the ACE data return. The first version of the SHED focused on Section A of the ACE return (which records school engagement), hence the name. It has since expanded to cover the entire ACE data return, and currently three HLOs use their own bespoke SHEDs.

Which Hub Lead Organisations currently use the SHED?

London West Music Hub and its five constituent music services across seven LAs;
East London Music Alliance and its seven music services across eight LAs; and
North London Music Hub and its five constituent LA music services.

How does it work?

Each bespoke SHED is a shared Google spreadsheet that has been localised to the relevant Hub Lead Organisation. This means it only contains that HLO's ACE-reportable schools, and each constituent service logs in to access their own named data entry tabs. Editing permissions are locked down so users can only edit their own service's data.

A user enters local provision data about lessons, ensembles, CIL, instrument loans, CPD, workforce characteristics, or any other data relevant to the ACE return. It is automatically combined with the other services' data and then collated in the exact form required by ACE. No one needs to do any calculations, nor stitch together any Excel spreadsheets. It's a really neat solution where all the number-crunching necessary for the ACE return happens automatically. 

Example - enter data once and it's incorporated into the correct three places in the ACE data return

Let's say Tri-borough Music Hub, which is one of LWMH's constituent services, loans a class set of 30 guitars to St Mungo's Primary School. TBMH inputs this data in their own input tab just once, but the data is output to three different places automatically:-

• Section A, where a school engagement is recorded against St Mungo's;

• Question D9, where 1 is added to the primary schools figure detailing the type of schools who took loans;

• Question D10, where 30 is added to the total number of instrument loans made to primary schools

Whatever type of data a user enters (e.g. ensemble pupil details, CPD attendees, quarterly finance (ACE payment conditions) data, WCET / CIL details, workforce data, school performances, narratives about successes and challenges, etc.) the SHED updates the ACE return in all the appropriate places.

I have used my 14 years of experience completing ACE returns (and my unashamed love of spreadsheets!) to create something that I believe is game-changing for the new HLO 'super-hub' landscape. 

The SHED effectively breaks down a huge, complex, specialist, error-prone task (compiling the ACE return) into a series of non-specialist data entry tasks. It becomes a shared endeavour across the HLO's constituent services rather than a job solely for one person in the hub lead organisation.

Can we use it for our ACE payment conditions (management accounts / financial returns)?

Yes. Each constituent hub / local lead partner has a panel in the SHED for completing the four payment conditions finance templates required by ACE: Annual Budget (at the start of the year); Autumn actual spend (due in January); Spring actual spend (due in April); and full year management accounts (due in November of the following year as part of the annual data return).

All of the HLO-wide sums are carried out automatically in the SHED, avoiding the need to 'stitch together' Excel spreadsheets from each constituent hub in your consortium.

Could the SHED work for your music hub?

I've used my 14 years of experience completing ACE returns (and an unashamed love of spreadsheets!) to create something that I believe is game-changing for the new HLO / 'super-hub' / consortium music education hub landscape.

The SHED breaks down a huge, complex, specialist, error-prone task (compiling the annual ACE return) into a series of non-specialist data entry tasks. It becomes a shared endeavour across the HLO's constituent services rather than an almost unmanageable job for one person in the hub lead organisation.

Furthermore, the data in the SHED is 'live' as soon as it is entered, so you can use it to review and target school non-engagement, or patterns such as variations in school engagement by deprivation (the SHED contains a breakdown of school engagement by IDACI decile), or even geographical cold-spots (the SHED includes a live school engagement map).

If you would like to know more about the SHED, please drop me an email at jake@narrowingthegaps.co.uk. I will be very happy to show you how it all works, with absolutely no obligation.