Charlotte, 28, star of TV’s Wuthering Heights, and more recently DCI Banks, was the guest of honour at Teesside High’s annual prize-giving Speech Day.

As well as handing out more than 100 awards, the actress, from Thorpe Thewles, made a speech to a packed audience of students and parents.

She told them that once you can get over the fear of failing, you can achieve more than you ever thought you could.

Charlotte, who is engaged to Inception star Tom Hardy, recently made a return to the Eaglescliffe school to surprise her former teachers.

She was invited to speak at Speech Day by the school’s headmaster Thomas Packer.

Charlotte said: “It is an absolute honour to be asked to come back. I am quite nervous. Everybody says you are an actor so you must be used to be talking publicly, but when you are acting you pretend to be a character.

“It is really great to see all the old teachers and there are lots of people I was at school with here.

“I’ve come back on a really special day and I’ve been really looking forward to it since Mr Packer asked me to come back. I mainly want to focus on the fact Teesside High has a really great tradition of nurturing students and the students tend to do really well because of that.

“One of the things I’d really like to say is that as an actor, you have to not be scared of getting things wrong and failing. When you are embarrassed about getting things wrong or failing, that’s when creativity really takes place.

“If you can get over the fear of failing, you can really achieve amazing things.

Charlotte admitted she was not always on her best behaviour as a pupil during speech days.

“But I think I won a drama cup once,” she said.

“Speech days are always good fun, it’s one of those days you can tell makes a difference in school.”

This year has been another busy and successful year for Charlotte.