Teachers at a small town Waikato school have perpetrated an elaborate hoax, all in the name of helping a group of boys brush up their writing skills.

Your playlist will load after this ad

A strange, burning "meteorite" turned up on the Te Awamutu Primary School sports field, Seven Sharp reported.

Constable Ryan Fleming was first on the scene in his police car last Monday.

"When I first arrived I saw some smouldering smoke coming from this end of the field. So we pulled up beside it, jumped out and my colleagues lept into action and bravely cordoned off the area," he recounted back at the scene.

Students in class at the time were gobsmacked.

"We all headed out to she what was the problem. And the meteor was on fire," a girl said.

A boy recalled, "It smelt like rocks."

School Principal Mrs Griffiths admitted she "might have" been in on the hoax the whole time and said it was "all in the love of learning".

"We've got a group of boys around about the seven to nine-years-old who're a bit sick of doing the good old genre-based writing," she said.

"So we were sort of trying to think of a way that we could spark it up, make it a bit more interesting for them, something hands on, something that would inspire them. And it's worked in spades."

Mrs Griffiths admitted the staff "might have put a little bit of accelerant on it and a bit of ash from everybody's home fires, wood-burning fires. And before you knew it it looked pretty authentic".