Youngsters from four schools got a taste of what it is like to work at a district council as they took charge for the day.
Year 10 students from Thetford Grammar School; Neatherd High School in Dereham; Litcham School in King's Lynn, and The Nicholas Hamond Academy in Swaffham, took over Breckland Council for the day.
They acted as cabinet members, balanced multi-million pound budgets, wrote a residents magazine and presented their ideas to colleagues.
The pupils worked in small teams and each had a councillor to act as their mentor.
The day finished with a presentation by each group.
Mark Robinson, Breckland Council executive member for governance, said: 'Our democratic system ensures that services are provided for residents and that we all have the right to vote and influence decisions.
'These children are our voters of the future and we hope the session today showed them the importance of using that vote - perhaps it has even inspired some to work for a local authority or perhaps even stand for election in the future.'
The Takeover Challenge was created and run by Breckland Training Services (BTS), a training and development service owned by the council.
It is designed to give the pupils a greater understanding of the work of local authority councillors and officers.
Richard Wills, BTS managing director, praised the pupils who took part.
He said: 'These young people are a credit to their schools. They worked very well as teams, kept their cool under pressure and came up with some really innovative ideas.'
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