The King’s School has appointed the current captain of the Cheshire women’s cricket team as its new head of academic physical education.
Former England academy player, Jennifer Dunn, gave up her chance of a career at international level to concentrate on teaching three years ago and now hopes to develop a passion for both participation and performance management across both girls’ and boys’ sports.
Recently married and now living in Macclesfield, Jenny is looking forward to her new challenge: “I played county table-tennis, badminton, lacrosse, football and finally cricket. I kept jumping from sport to sport until I realised cricket was my best chance of representing my country. I took up cricket at a late age of 14, worked my way through the county age groups, won recognition and was selected for England U19’, for two years and captained them in the European Cup. I then went on to play forEnglandAcademyuntil I was 23, playing against Pakistan, India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
“I made the decision to focus on a career in teaching, but I still play county cricket and am currently Cheshire women’s county captain. Hopefully I’ll have some more King’s girls playing alongside me in the near future.”
Jennifer completed a BA in physical education at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham “As head of academic PE and I will be trying to inspire and encourage pupils to achieve more within the academic side of PE as well as the extra-curricular side. Hopefully I can encourage more girls to see GCSE and A-level as viable options and steer them into successful careers with sport also making a strong contribution to their lives I hope to motivate every pupil, to get everyone involved and inspire those elite sportswomen, supporting them with my own experience of international sport.”
Jennifer has some immediate objectives: “I am looking forward to working with the hockey squads as a coach and also a mentor for all of the sports team to share my experiences as an elite athlete. I will be using that experience by running strength and conditioning sessions on a Thursday lunchtime to help the elite athletes with their training programmes. After Christmas I will start an indoor cricket team to enter into the National indoor competition, where I came runner-up myself as a pupil thanks to an inspirational PE teacher.
This is just the start of a golden era for women’s sport with the growing popularity among both players and the paying public of many mass participation sports previously the preserve of men such as cricket, football and rugby and we all want King’s to be at the vanguard.”
King’s School headmaster, Simon Hyde said: “Jennifer is a role model for all aspiring sports stars and we hope she will enable our young men and women to realise their potential.”
