Tonight’s Good Sort is Faith Trail, a dedicated teacher aide who goes above and beyond to ensure Cassius, a 10-year-old boy with a rare brain malformation, feels included and celebrated at school.
Casius was born with a rare birth defect called lissencephaly, and his mother Courtney said she remembered being told he wouldn’t reach the age of two or be able to walk or talk or show emotion.
“We basically got told to take him home and make him comfortable.”
Ten years on, Casius continues to defy the odds and is often the loudest in the classroom at his Masterton school despite being non-verbal.
“It was a ‘ga’. It’s his favourite thing to say, it means yes, it means I’m happy, it means feed me more,” Courtney said.
His sound cues and expressions have become a language his teacher aide Faith Trail understands after five years of working together.
“Sometimes, you can look at him and just know how he’s feeling and what’s going to happen. This is his ‘I’m bored’,” she laughed.
Faith and her husband Matt go to great lengths to make Casius feel like part of the school, especially at the school’s Book Week where kids dress up as their favourite characters.
“We selfishly, make it huge for it to be about him.”
This year, Casius is going as a waka, but before that there was a Superman costume, a hot air balloon, a pirate ship and a train with a carriage.
“He’s not going to get a sports award or an academic award or be noticed in that kind of way, but this is something that we can just make him really shine,” Trail said.
