St Mary Mackillop College furniture design teacher Garry Seary walks into the workshop, has a laugh with the boys and grabs an old church pew he's just refurnished.
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He moves off to start varnishing but one of the boys calls him back.
''Garry, if you look at that pew in this light you can still see imperfections and they'll really stand out when you varnish it,'' he advises.
''You need to give it a bit more work.''
It might seem a little strange for a student to take over the lesson except that today, Mr Seary is the work experience kid.
After 20 years as an industrial technology teacher, Mr Seary has returned to Fyshwick company Azzopardi & Hancock to see if the furniture design skills he teaches match up to the expectations of the real world.
And he is not alone.
Figures from the ACT Education and Training directorate show more than 20 teachers have returned to industry for work experience in the past four years, while 34 will update their skills at the Canberra Institute of Technology this year.
With the growth of Trade Training Centres and vocational courses in schools, educators understand the need for classes to remain relevant to industry standards.
But are school teachers really the best people to deliver an education in the trades?
Many would argue that industry professionals - the plumbers, carpenters and hairdressers themselves - are the best ones to pass skills on to the next generation.
But the Education Directorate's senior executive officer of tertiary education and training, Kaaren Blom, said it was not good enough to assume that a skilled tradesman would also be an effective teacher.
''The ACT recently set up the Teacher Quality Institute specifically so we could quality assure all of our teachers and that includes vocational education,'' she said.
To teach a class they not only need a teaching degree but also a certificate IV in training and assessment, a vocational qualification equal to the course they are teaching as well as current industry experience.
Without a degree, skilled tradesmen can run a course under the supervision of a degree-qualified teacher.
Mr Seary spent 10 years as a qualified plumber before heading to university to get a secondary teaching degree.
He now teaches subjects such as woodwork, metalwork, furniture design and technical drawing and has a certificate II in construction pathways so he can teach basic carpentry, tiling and plastering as well.
''Plus, there is always the option of inviting guest presenters,'' he said.
''We had a school parent who was a panel beater come in to show our automotive students how to repair the body panel of a car over two to three weeks,'' he said.
Mr Seary relished his yearly work experience opportunities.
Since visiting Azzopardi & Hancock he has learnt soft furnishing and furniture upholstery skills, been taught ''tricks of the trade'' in surface preparation and been introduced to new machinery, which he then bought for his students.
''One of the most gratifying things for me is that a number of my students have since been taken on by Azzopardi & Hancock, so I'm working side by side with my ex-students,'' he said. ''A lot of people say to me 'isn't that awkward?' but I feel very proud of the fact that the students I've taught are now in the industry. At the end of the day all we're doing is giving them a taster. If they like it and go on to do it that is fantastic but if they don't, at least we've helped them tick one more option off the list.''