here its mandatory until 11th grade, where it becomes an elective. and let me tell you I waited my whole life to be able to not have gym! I HATE it. at most schools here you are graded on partici[ation, not ability. but at one elementery school that I went to, it was very althletics oreintated so they dealt with it by grading you on ability. that is HORRABLE. basicly if you are not athletic you fail. and that's not fair. I always hated gym, and tryed to get out of it whenever possable, for example in elemtery school they consider gym a privialge and if you dont bring your gym clothes you lose that privlidge lol so guess what I did? gym is a privlage that I have never wanted, so on gym days I purposly left my gym cloths at home, my friend would do the same, and we would get to sit in the hall and chat, and have fun, instead of being miserable! now in grade 9 I absolutly hated my gum teacher, ok if anyone else in the class got injured or something, even slightly, or felt sick they got to sit out, but if anything happend to me, for example I was sick and felt like I was going to thro up and my mom wrote a note, asking the teacher to exuse me from gym that day, and this really happend, she said, "if you need to throw up, you can run to the bathroom" then she dragged us all to the soccer/football feild and forced me to run from end zone to endzone 6 times, there and back = 1, in under 3 minuts. HELLO, I feel like I am going to puke, I have a headache, and I am dizzy! what the heck is her problem? so of coarse I was NOT looking forward to gym in grade 10, mainly because it was tought by a teacher known to be tough. but acually she was not that bad. she took us golfing, and bowling and that kind of thing, and the interne I really liked, we did hip hop dancing, and being a dancer I enjoyed that. and t-ball is fun, and so is soccer, my teacher even made football fun! and tought it is a way I understood. but that was the fisrt gym class I have EVER had fun in. so when I filled out of classes for grade 11 is made my day to see gym on the electives list!