Regrettably we can't hold the UKAT Annual Conference as originally planned this year, but fear not! We have decided to transform the 2-day physical conference into an online 4-day Festival of Effective Advising and Tutoring. 

Looking ahead to a new academic year, personal tutoring is featuring high on the priority list of many institutions. This Festival focuses on activities designed to prepare advisors and tutors to effectively support their students remotely in the new normal. It explores how personal tutoring makes a fundamental contribution to the personalisation of learning and connects the formal curriculum to student aspirations to enhance their success. There are opportunities to learn from experts in the field, review effective practices with colleagues, and participate in interactive workshops. And we have included a host of additional interactive workshops, presentations and social activities to make this virtual Festival of Effective Advising and Tutoring a bigger, brighter and more exciting event than the conference we had originally planned.

Key highlights include

• Professional development and practice-sharing sessions
• Interactive workshops
• Panel discussions
• Technology in Tutoring showcase - technology demonstrator illustrating how technology can make advising and tutoring more effective for students and more efficient for staff
• Launch celebration for UKAT-edited Frontiers in Education Special Edition on Academic Advising and Tutoring for Student Success in Higher Education: International Perspectives. Research sessions focused on articles from this Special Edition
• Launch celebration for CRA/UKAT RAPPORT Journal final edition. Sessions focused on retrospective of case studies of personal tutoring practice
• UKAT-AMOSSHE Joint webinar on Academic Tutoring and Student Services. Never the twain shall meet or perfectly entwined?
• Mentoring and support for those interested in gaining UKAT Professional Recognition
• UKAT Awards ceremony
• Social activities and networking opportunities

The Festival is designed for you to be able to dip in and out of to fit around your other commitments during the week. All of the sessions will be recorded and made exclusively available to delegates after the event, so even if you don't manage to catch a session live, you can still engage with it later at your leisure. And all participants paying the standard delegate fee will be eligible to make a free application for professional recognition through the UKAT Professional Recognition Scheme.