Bosco Catholic Education Trust opened in 2017 with St Mary’s Catholic Primary and St Philip Howard Catholic Secondary. Annecy Catholic Primary joined in 2019 and St Joseph’s Catholic Primary in 2020. Since then, the Trust has continued to expand with St Paul’s Catholic College (secondary) and three primaries: St Peter’s Catholic Primary, St Wilfrid’s Catholic Primary, Our Lady Queen of Heaven joining over the course of 2022.   St Robert Southwell Catholic Primary and St Wilfrid’s Catholic Primary Burgess Hill joined the Trust in 2024 and St Catherine’s Catholic Primary most recently in January 2025.

CEO of Bosco CET, Dave Carter, is a National Leader of Education having previously been the Headteacher of SPH, an outstanding Catholic secondary school with a proven track record of raising achievement through school-to-school partnerships.

St John Bosco founded the Salesian Order in the 19th Century. He had a profound and compelling vision for education, reaching out to some of the most vulnerable, disaffected and uncared for children in Turin and the surrounding areas. He provided them with faith, hope and love, giving them opportunities and a future that no-one else had afforded them.

Don Bosco spoke about the need for children to be ‘known and loved’. The deanery schools chose Don Bosco as the patron of the Trust as he encapsulated all that we cherish in Catholic education, providing a model of leadership and education to sustain and nourish us on the exciting journey ahead.

Catholic schools across Arundel & Brighton diocese are working collaboratively, cross-phase, to develop an exciting vision for Catholic education which is fit for the future. Within Sussex, there are 35 schools: 29 primary and 6 secondary. Over time, it is anticipated that other schools within Sussex will join Bosco CET, to help develop Catholic education across the South Coast.