Wolverhampton's new Director of Education wants schools standards in the city to be the best in the Black Country – if not the West Midlands. Julien Kramer says he is determined to continue the good work to drive up education attainment levels in Wolverhampton, and further increase the number of local schools rated either good or outstanding by Ofsted.

Willows Hedgehog Rescue has joined forces with Birmingham City Council and other councils across the West Midlands to raise awareness of the dangers that brush cutters and ‘strimmers’ can pose to wildlife, especially hedgehogs. Many hundreds of hedgehogs every year are seriously injured, sometimes fatally, by the use of line trimmers or ‘strimmers’. 

Grand Designs Live, sponsored by Anglian Home Improvements, today celebrated it's 10^th birthday at the NEC in Birmingham with design guru and presenter Kevin McCloud entering the exhibition in the world's first origami inspired car. The car, made by Lexus, is a life-size replica of the new IS saloon, created from 1,700 fully recyclable laser-cut cardboard sheets.

Groups and organisations throughout the UK and Ireland that are working to address and test solutions to the digital challenges facing vulnerable young people aged 12-25 are being invited to apply for funding to either help make their work a reality or to help them continue their existing efforts.

October is Black History Month, and cultural historian Patrick Vernon OBE is hosting two events in Wolverhampton next weekend to celebrate the contribution the African-Caribbean community has made to Britain. The Wolverhampton-born writer, historian, political activist and founder of 100 Great Black Britons will give a talk on the “Windrush generation” who settled in Wolverhampton from the 1940s onwards before presenting a film about the life of Jamaican pilot Eddie Martin Noble, who served with the RAF in the Second World War.

Erdington folk are being encouraged to ‘make a difference’ to the lives of children in the area by becoming a governor with the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership’s Brookvale and Slade primary schools. The ATLP is a multi-academy trust of five children’s centres, four primary schools, three secondary schools and a Teaching School, based in Four Oaks, Erdington and Coleshill, with 4,500 children, over 725 staff and 70 governors across seven local governing bodies.