Children at a Seven Kings primary school turned into super sleuths yesterday when a mysterious giant egg was found in the playground.

As part of Aldborough E-Act Free School’s inspirational writing day, pupils had to investigate and write news reports on the strange appearance.

Recorder reporter Lizzie Dearden visited a class at the school in Aldborough Road South to help them with their writing and talk to them about being a real-life journalist.

After a game of Chinese whispers to show what would happen to news without newspapers, the class learnt some shorthand (“special journalist writing”) before asking questions.

English leader Emma Knight hatched the plan for the egg story with colleagues.

She said headteacher Nicola Percy “discovered” the egg in the morning and pupils were tasked with art and writing to help find out what it was.

Miss Knight said: “It engages them to want to write with a real purpose.

“It gives them a sense of why we write and why it’s important to have the facts.”

When the Recorder left the school, dragons and visiting aliens were the most popular theories, but the source of the egg has yet to be confirmed.