On Friday, October 12, Greenhill School was fortunate to partake in a scheme created by Pembrokeshire County Council. In the past years this day has been very successful and this year was no exception, students and staff alike were thoroughly satisfied with the day as a whole (writes Samantha Smith, 12RDH).

The Local Government in Action Day is aimed at introducing management concepts to students in Year 12, based on a local authority. It also provided students with the opportunity to demonstrate and develop some necessary key skills.

The game allowed students to experience what being part of a team was like and how crucial the decisions made by the council are for the local community. Each student was given in advance, a role as one of the council's directors, these included chief executive, director of finance and various directors from different sectors of the council, all of which made up 13 management teams.

The students were also fortunate to be joined by actual officers from Pembrokeshire County Council, who were on hand to give advice on how to get their points across in the meeting that followed. The officers offered the students in their department, ways in which to ensure that their particular schemes were given the go-ahead.

This allowed the students to reveal all the positive aspects of their bids and to show determination and confidence when putting these across in the final meeting. Their presence was much appreciated and students were able to understand their roles with confidence.

Each management team had to work together to discuss which projects from the different sectors should go ahead in order to represent the best interests of the whole community. All of the schemes presented totalled £15,850,000, so careful debate was needed in each team, as the budget was set at £8,500,000 and this could not be exceeded.

Each team was also presented with another problem halfway through the day; their budget had been cut by £500,000. This may have meant reworking their budget in order to stay within the boundaries.

The teams also had another obstacle to get around; a protest group began a rally to show their unhappiness with the council's action. This meant that the students had to reconsidered their report in order to satisfy all of the local community.

Once each team had completed the report, it was down to the chief executive and director of finance to create a presentation to put forward to a group of councillors. Like before, the actual officers were on hand to give guidance to all the team and this was gratefully received.

Whilst the heads of each management team worked on their final presentation, the student directors had a new role to undertake. All the students were briefed on how to take on the role as a councillor for the presentation. During the presentations, they presented the chief executives with questions about the final budget. At the end of the day the councillors were asked to vote on which budget they felt best represented the interests of the local community.

All the students demonstrated their ability to work as part of a team and showed confidence in bringing their opinions across. Both staff and visitors to the school commented on how all the students acted positively and maturely throughout the day. The day as a whole was thoroughly enjoyed by the students, too, and they were very appreciative of the time taken by members of Pembrokeshire County Council and Miss Sarah Jones from the Education Business Division in order to organise this informative and inspirational day for them.