The 5th and 6th grade summer camp string orchestra consisted of:
- Four violins - Two violas - Eight cellos - One bass
I guess cello is having a moment!
Suffice to say, those aren't the proportions they have in Serious Orchestras, but obviously you gotta let the kids play what they actually want to play, and that config didn't sound bad at all.
They also had a subset of the high school orchestra play, and they were very tight. I have never played this well in my life. My high school orchestra came nowhere close to this level. Anyway, it was a good idea to have them play. I think both middle schoolers to be and parents were motivated by it.