A Victorian high school teacher has been spared jail, despite admitting having sex with a male student in the back of her car and at her house on multiple occasions.

A judge has found that the conduct of Monique Ooms, 31, was “not predatory” and said “questions of consent and harm will need to be answered” regarding the relevant law in the future.

Ooms was a teacher at Sale Secondary College when she began a sexual relationship with a male student in July 2022. She slept with the boy in the back of her car at a pine forest in Rosedale and then at her home in Maffra.

In the County Court of Victoria, Ooms was sentenced to a four-year community corrections order with conviction after pleading guilty to four counts of sexual penetration of a 16 or 17-year-old under her care and supervision.

In sentencing the now ex-secondary school teacher, Judge John Smallwood said that, while the relationship was “utterly inappropriate”, he did not find Ooms’ conduct to be predatory.

Judge Smallwood said the relationship began over text messages in late May 2022.

What initially started as exchanges of support progressed to Ooms sending pictures of herself in her underwear before the student sneaked out of his home and met up with his teacher for the first time in July of that year.

“The messages were initially friendly. However, over time [they] escalated to the point where the parties would text each other ‘love you’ and ‘I miss you’,” a prosecution summary released by the court said.

Judge Smallwood that, when the relationship was discovered, the student urged Ooms to delete the messages between the pair.

He said the student said Ooms was “a very nice person, and I believe she had genuine feelings for me”.

“She’s not like that,” Judge Smallwood, quoting the student, said in court.

“I never wanted it to end like this,” the student had said.

“He said you were good to him in times of need,” Judge Smallwood said.

He said the cost to Ooms had been significant and was amplified by her living in a country town. She lost her job at a pharmacy and a local pub and had been suspended from her role at the Country Fire Authority.

In addition to her four-year community corrections order and conviction, Ooms will need to complete 300 hours of unpaid community work and undergo counselling.