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Even the youngest pupils were giants compared to recent visitors to a Harlow primary school.

Children arrived at Freshwaters Primary Academy to find the Borrowers had moved in and set up home.

A tiny doorway and miniature footprints discovered in the hall soon had excitement spreading around the school as to what had happened overnight.

The event inspired various projects in each year group.

Anne Apperley, Year 6 teacher, said: “As a year group, the arrival of the Borrowers was used as a basis to write diaries, with children pretending they were one of the Borrowers. They watched part of the film and used that as stimulus for writing their diary entries, using recount writing from what they had seen.

“As homework, pupils were asked to make a small room for the Borrowers. As their SATs were just around the corner, this was a fun piece of work before the tests.”

The school uses moments like this to help pupils to indulge in a topic and draw on the experiences for their writing.

Head of school Teresa Avey said: “What is so lovely about introducing a hook like this at the beginning of a topic, is the buzz of excitement and wonder it causes in the children – all around the school the intrigue and curiosity created by the invasion was clear to see. Engagement from the onset really is the key to great learning and, as in this case, this enthusiasm can then be used to its advantage to really impact on the work produced by the children.”