I see your point about more teachers. Here we have two classes running in 5th
grade, a winds group and a strings group. I know my old school broke that out
cellos from the other strings, but they can be together. If you are going to
run four groups concurrently that is starting to look more like group lessons
than a music class.

By 6th grade almost everyone is in orchestra. For the most recent winds
students that might mean 3rd clarinet parts and so on. The easiest violin parts
don't look to me like they get out of 1st position. Richard Fron does most of
the scoring himself and arranges things to fit the range of the group at our
school. I know Carol was doing a similar thing at her school. There is some
grumbling from the most advanced students, but they also get some much harder
parts. In addition, they sometimes join the high school orchestra around
concert time.

Jan