Like many who work in FE, my little corner of education exists within a very large organisation. Much like my classrooms reside within a building, my department resides within a school that resides within another department and so on. This is replicated all across my college - its many smaller parts forming a towering whole. Footfall at my building is in the thousands and enrolment across our many sites is in the tens of thousands.

With my meagre classes of a couple of dozen, I’m basically a tiny, slightly rusty cog in a huge machine that is doing its best to make sure we all keep trundling along (thankfully, this is what happens for the vast majority of the time at my gaff).

And that’s just me. I literally have no idea how those at the top manage something as behemothic; the drivers who pull the levers and push the buttons that ensure everything runs as smoothly as possible. Even thinking about that type of responsibility and the pressures that go with it gives me the heebie-jeebies. (I have enough trouble trying to manage two hours of English GCSE last thing on a Monday if I don’t get that third cup of coffee).

I’m basically a tiny, slightly rusty cog in a huge machine that is doing its best to make sure we all keep trundling along

With mergers and the diversification of provision in colleges all over the country, educators now find themselves in institutions that are expanding in many different ways (often in response to a tightening of purse strings from up high that feels more like a garroting with piano wire). Personally, I haven’t got much of a problem with expansion; it’s often the case that with it arrive new opportunities and ideas, and it can be a positive change. However, I think there can be issues when it comes at the cost of forgetting what FE is supposed to be doing in the first place - which is offering a broad range of quality education.

There is a danger that this central facet is left behind when expansion is rushed - when a desperate type of short-termism comes to the forefront and ill-thought-out plans are hurried through. If, when trying to grow, we lose sight of what should be the core of what we do (whether it be in response to unfair pressures or not), the cogs will break, the leavers will snap, the buttons will stick and the machine will eventually grind to a crashing halt. And deservedly so.

So does size really matter? I don’t think it has to. As long as these great machines we find ourselves part of beat with a heart that is with and for the people that we are supposed to help (our learners), then big does not necessarily mean bad.

But the heart has to be there because, without it, it’s very difficult for us rusty cogs to keep on spinning. Coffee or not.

Tom Starkey teaches English at a college in the North of England. He tweets @tstarkey1212