There have been three obvious paradigms which have successively dominated mathematics teaching during my teaching career: three eras of predominant pedagogy. None of the so-called “reforms”, however, achieved a total take-over of the schools. “Traditional mathematics”, the first paradigm, survived right through the era of “new maths for schools”, the second paradigm. In some schools “new maths” was hardly noticed, and probably in no school did “new maths” change everything in the curriculum – there were a number of topics which carried on much as before. Applicable/problem-solving maths, the third paradigm, arrived on the back of Shell, Spode, Cockcroft and SMP 11-16 around 1982.