Chichester is the smallest of the nine universities created in 2005, despite being an amalgamation of two former teacher training colleges.

But it featured in the top ten in the first National Student Survey and was back there in 2007, when history, the creative arts and sports science all showed very high levels of satisfaction.

Indeed, the university has had an extremely creditable debut overall in The Times League Table, finishing ahead of most of the former polytechnics, as well as all the remaining newcomers.

These achievements came too late to influence applications in the first year of top-up fees, but there was a spectacular increase of 22 per cent for courses beginning in 2007.

The 10 per cent decline a year later was mainly due to the switch from six choices per applicant to five. The university traces its history back to 1839, when the college that subsequently bore his name was founded in memory of William Otter, the education-minded Bishop of Chichester. It became a teacher training college for women, who still account for two-thirds of the places.

Development

Two further stages preceded university status – twenty years as the West Sussex Institute of Higher Education, following an amalgamation with the nearby Bognor Regis College of Education, and then seven as University College Chichester.

The Chichester campus – now the larger of two – continues to carry the Bishop Otter name, signifying a continuing link with the Church of England. There are six schools divided between the two sites, all of them in the arts, social sciences or education. Degree subjects range from adventure education to humanistic counselling, fine art and theology.

The PE teacher training course is the largest in the country – the university now trains one in five PE teachers in England – and highly rated by Ofsted. Media studies achieved full marks in the best of Chichester’s teaching assessments and, while the university was less successful in the Research Assessment Exercise, it entered a larger proportion of its academics than any of its peer group.

International

The Mathematics Centre, at Bognor, has an international reputation, working with over thirty countries as well as teaching the university’s own students. It has become a focal point for curriculum development in Britain and elsewhere.

Almost all the students are stateeducated and, while the proportions from working-class homes and areas of low participation in higher education are both below the national average for the university’s courses and entry grades, this is attributed to its location.

Access

The projected dropout rate, at only 8.5 per cent, is barely more than half the benchmark figure. Two out of ten students are 21 or older on entry.

The university runs summer taster sessions and has a series of partnerships with schools in the Channel Islands and Sussex to encourage a broader intake.

Courses are also run in collaboration with Isle of Wight College, where fees are pegged at £1,200, and with the Academy of Play and Child Psychotherapy, in Uckfield, East Sussex. Both of the university’s campuses are within ten minutes’ walk of the sea and the 520 residential places are roughly equally divided between them.

There is a university bus service linking the two and student union bars at each. Sports facilities are good and competitive teams surprisingly successful for such a small university. The university has been chosen to provide training facilities for competitors in athletics, boxing, road cycling and table tennis before the 2012 Olympic Games.

Sports

The bid was based on Chichester’s expertise in sports science, as well as its facilities. The small cathedral city of Chichester is best known as a yachting venue, while Bognor’s days as a leading holiday resort are well in the past, but both offer a good supply of private housing and some student-oriented bars. Much of the surrounding countryside has been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty.

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