Our week got off to a flying start at assembly today when we welcomed back Charlotte Berman, NHEHS alumna and star of BBC’s ‘Traitors’ Series 3!

As both a Faithful and a Traitor, Charlotte famously pretended she was Welsh, managing somehow to maintain her accent for the whole series!

Miss Holmes, who led the assembly, spoke about attitudes to accent bias and prejudice in terms of class, power, wealth, race and ethnicity. She cited the research of sociolinguist Howard Giles from the 1970s and how, interestingly, attitudes have not changed much since. He found that the Received Pronunciation accent (RP, or the “Queen’s English” or “BBC English”) is associated with being less friendly and approachable, while the Welsh accent ranks higher for trust and solidarity.

Charlotte told us how exhausting it was to play the role the whole time under the watchful eye of the other contestants and the life-long friendships she made.

A huge thank you to Charlotte for sharing her unique experience with us!