After years of studying and teaching within the TAFE sector, Heavy Automotive Teacher Will Sharpe has been named one of three finalists for Victoria’s Teacher/Trainer of the Year.  

SuniTAFE’s Vision is to inspire growth and belief through learning, both for students and teachers.  

Since beginning his teaching career at SuniTAFE, Will has been supported and given opportunities to develop his skills and grow as a teacher.  

This has paid off for him and has resulted in a successful 2024 filled with unique opportunities.  

So far, Will has been named SuniTAFE’s Teacher of the Year and a finalist for the Victorian Training Awards. He will also be travelling to France next month to support his student Thomas Bevan who will participate in the WorldSkills International Championships.  

“Having a supportive employer is so important and SuniTAFE has been great in that regard,” Will said.  

“My Education Delivery Manager Sophie Cook especially, she is new to our area and our industry, and she has absolutely run with it. She recognises hard work and always helps me to improve.” 

From SuniTAFE Trained to SuniTAFE Trainer 

Ever since secondary college, Heavy Automotive Teacher Will Sharpe has been a part of the SuniTAFE community both as a student and an educator.  

His career began as a school-based apprentice studying Agricultural Mechanical Technology at the Swan Hill campus, during which he was awarded the Garry Thomson Memorial Achievement Award.   

After some time working in industry, he joined the Heavy Vehicle Industry Committee that was responsible for establishing the Heavy Automotive department at the Mildura campus in 2019.  

This reinvolvement with SuniTAFE sparked a passion for Will, and from then he decided to study his Training and Assessment qualification and become a teacher.  

Today, Will delivers three Heavy Automotive competencies to hundreds of students as well as a course in Automotive Electrical Technology.  

Will’s nomination for the Victorian Training Awards comes from his commitment to student outcomes and his ability to inspire and guide each student who enters his classroom.  

“The thing I love most about my job is that lightbulb moment,” Will said.  

“That moment where you explain something in a way to a student that they can actually grasp it. Not only so that they can fill out the workbook or pass the assessment, but they actually physically take away the knowledge to do that task.”  

Being a student who sometimes struggled himself, Will knows the power of genuine mentorship in teaching and the value of alternative teaching practices.  

“I’m a big believer in reversal teaching,” Will said.  

“Activities like, instead of setting the fault for them to find, I get them to set the fault for me and it has to fit the symptoms of what I tell them, which is so much harder to do. And then I can show them different tactics that I use to find the problem.  

“They are always so excited about it because they want to trip me up so I can’t find the fault but more importantly they’re engaged and learning.”  

Will’s teachings in the classroom are backed by industry knowledge and the understanding that his role as a teacher is concerned with making students highly sought-after employees and tradespeople.  

“Local industry and TAFE have to work hand in hand for the training to be facilitated correctly,” he said.  

“Industry is massive because, not only are they technically our customers, they are our whole training. We need to set our training to a standard that matches what the industry is doing. There’s no point teaching something that we are no longer doing in industry. 

“We definitely leverage a lot of what we teach and what we do off what industry have told us and what they want out of their apprentices. 

“We definitely move our training around what the industry is doing, which can be tricky because we’ve still got to stay within a qualification framework and stick to all the guidelines, but we also need to bring in that level of industry engagement to fill skills demand locally.”  

Will has developed a vast array of industry contacts that he uses to inform his teachings, including in his mentorship of SuniTAFE student Thomas Bevan to compete against the rest of the world at the WorldSkills International competition. Read more about this here.  

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