The University of Chester is a public university located in Chester, England. The university originated as the first purpose-built teacher training college in the UK. As a university, it now occupies five campus sites in and around Chester, one in Warrington, and a University Centre in Shrewsbury. It offers a range of foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as undertaking academic research.
The original College building (still in use and now known as Old College) in 1843, a year after it opened
Parkgate Road Campus
University of Chester, Marriss House (at left)
University of Chester Riverside Campus.
A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. Many such schools have since been called teacher training colleges or teachers' colleges, but in Mexico, continue to be called normal schools, with student-teachers being known as normalistas. Many schools require a high school diploma for entry, and may be part of a comprehensive university. Normal schools in the United States, Canada, and Argentina trained teachers for primary schools, while in Europe, the equivalent colleges typically educated teachers for primary schools and later extended their curricula to also cover secondary schools.
"County Normal" above an entrance to the normal school in Viroqua, Wisconsin
An entrance gate at Beijing Normal University, an example of a comprehensive research university established as a normal school
Students of the Beiyang Women's Normal School, an early example of a normal school in China (1912)
Tokyo Higher Normal School in 1887