THE Department of Education has met with Swansea High students as part of its investigation into a teacher making comments in class about the relevance of a woman's clothing in rape.
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The Newcastle Herald reported last month that year 10 students Reece Hill, Ngara Kennedy, Natalia Nikolic and Marnie Holl had organised a protest outside their school on October 28 to call out victim blaming and demand their teacher's sacking, after she made the comments the week before.
A 29 second video posted online of the teacher's classroom exchange with Reece and other students has been viewed more 135,500 times.
Reece, 15, said while the matters discussed at the meeting were confidential, she and the other students had felt heard.
"It makes us all very happy, we feel like it's finally being taken seriously and finally happening," Reece said.
She and the other three protest organisers spoke at the launch of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Newcastle and attended the Hunter White Ribbon breakfast on Friday.
"We want to use our platform from the incident in the classroom and build on it," she said.
"We want to bring awareness to the issue itself, not just the incident.
"I think our goal is to become activists.
"We're hoping to be able to do things and make a difference, to speak at events.
"It's easier to educate people when they're younger, they're more willing to open their eyes and change their minds.
"As young girls it's going to be our world soon. We want to make it as good a place as possible."
A department spokesperson said it was not appropriate to comment further while the investigation was underway.