Now generally known as SMP, it began as a research project inspired by a 1961 conference chaired by Bryan Thwaites at the University of Southampton, which itself was precipitated by calls to reform mathematics teaching in the wake of the Sputnik launch by the Soviet Union, the same circumstances that prompted the wider New Math movement.
Instead of dwelling on 'traditional' areas such as arithmetic and geometry, SMP dwelt on subjects such as set theory, graph theory and logic, non-cartesian co-ordinate systems, matrix mathematics, affine transforms, Euclidean vectors, and non-decimal number systems.
[2] The computer paper tape motif on early educational material reads "THE SCHOOL MATHEMATICS PROJECT DIRECTED BY BRYAN THWAITES".
The Simpol language was devised by The School Mathematics Project [3] in the 1960s so as to introduce secondary pupils (typically aged 13) to what was then the novel concept of computer programming.
An interpreter for the Simpol language (that will run on a present-day PC) can be downloaded from the University of Southampton, at their SMP 2.0 website.