Grade 10 travels through the decades to claim batch cheer championship

By: Jess Precilla

Batch 2024 won the championship, along with the hearts of many, as they managed to transport us back to the black & white days, the peak of disco music, the era of large polos, and the rise and evolution of pop music. This they all did within their five-minute Batch Cheer, which was live-streamed last March 19, 2022, in Rosehill’s Family Day entitled Homeward. 

This production is a testament to the Grade 10 students’ diverse talents and commendable teamwork. The main director of the cheer, Sandy Manalo, talks to us about the concepts, process, and messages present and gives us all the more reason to love this video.

Conceptualization

In the one-month-long creation process, the first step the batch tackled was the conceptualization. Given the theme of ‘family’ this Family Day, it was clear to the Grade 10 students that including their family members in the dances was absolutely necessary. 

“We really wanted to highlight being with family, especially in a pandemic. You know, their presence really matters,” said Sandy. 

Unlike the batch’s decisiveness to include their family in the cheer, the inspiration of through the decades came to Sandy as a serendipity. 

One day, she was listening to ’80s music (like all of us love to do) and the idea to include music from different decades in their batch cheer suddenly came to her. Aside from the fact that everyone loves older music, it sounded like a good idea to the batch because the Rosehill parents would be able to relate more.

Communication

After a week of finalizing concepts and ideas, batch ‘24 allocated another week to meet for designs, costumes, choreography, and lyrics. 

When asked about the challenges the batch encountered during this time, Sandy said, “I think it was like, we started out good because we really asked everyone for their opinions. But there were a few bumps there where we forgot to update people on what was happening on their progress. But when we did that, there were actually not many complaints.” 

It’s no shock to us that the Grade 10 students were able to iron out any bumps smoothly and efficiently. With their experiences from their online adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera and their very first online batch cheer, they have become experts at creating impactful works in this remote setup.

“You know, our batch has had experience before with this online stuff. So what we really learned is really to communicate and be transparent with what you’re doing, also to involve everyone from the start. We were a democracy here! Everyone’s voice was heard,” Sandy proudly said. 

Family production

The next two weeks were the more arduous parts of the process. The batch had one week to film the dances and record the songs, and the next week was designated for purely editing. It was inevitable for the students to feel tired and unmotivated, especially with the school work piling up on the sides. 

Sandy described how she kept her batchmates inspired.

“For one, there was the prize of not having class for one day. And so that was a very big motivator, but otherwise, it was really like because we worked so hard for so long, why would you want your efforts to go to waste? It was also so cute because it was also a family production; it wasn’t just a batch. It was like our whole families were involved.”

Involving the families in the batch cheer didn’t just inspire the Grade 10 students. Sandy believed that this is what set her batch’s cheer apart from the others’ and inspired the judges to award her batch the championship. 

“Like nobody’s really done this, involve their parents in student activities, so it’s really fresh to see. I think what we really highlighted there was family and friendship because we were able to incorporate both aspects really well,” said Sandy. 

There are many things to admire about their batch cheer, but one thing Sandy wished to point out was the importance they gave to their music choices. She noted that music is another way of communicating with people, so by choosing to include music from various decades, the batch was able to touch the hearts of a wider variety of people.

Easter Eggs & Hidden Messages

I’ve always loved inside jokes and hidden meanings, so when I asked Sandy if there were any in their batch cheer, I was happy to find out that there were more than a few hidden in their lyrics. 

“I think for the [song] ‘God Only Knows,’ we didn’t mention it explicitly, but it was for the pandemic. Because we’re in grade 10, and we’ve spent the two years of our older junior high school years at the house, and it’s like we’ve missed a lot of opportunities, and yeah. So we were really sad, and we just wanted to express that in ‘God Only Knows.’” 

In their revised version of the song “Single Ladies,” they included a line that says, “sharing our hopes because it’s almost time before we leave.” When asked to elaborate on this lyric, Sandy expressed that there is a great possibility for their batch to go their separate ways in the coming two years of senior high school. They felt like the batch cheer would feel more meaningful if they commemorated that, which is why the batch’s lyricists decided to go the extra mile and dedicate an entire song to this. 

“In [the song] ‘Here’s To Never Growing Up,’ we have a lyric, ‘singing Air Supply’s song at the top of our lungs,’ and that was during our grade 8 campout, and yeah, we just sang the song to the whole gym, to the whole high school body, so it was really a memorable moment for all of us,” revealed Sandy. 

In the same song, they included the lyric, “We were running up the stairs yelling ‘lunch is done!’” Sandy joked that in grade 8, this line was most applicable when it was Filipino time because that was always the subject that came after lunch. 

The songwriters then ended the song with the line, “When the sun’s going down, and our ribbons are hung singing, here’s to never growing up.” Sandy affirmed that it is their promise to each other that at the end of the day, they will always cherish their Rosehill memories together as one batch.