A review into maths teaching in England’s schools published by Ofsted has been criticised by maths experts as “ill-advised” in part and based on evidence that is “not secure”.

The Association of Mathematics Education Teachers (AMET) yesterday published a formal complaint into the review published in May, which was intended by Ofsted to identify “factors that can contribute to high-quality school maths curriculums” as well as some common features of successful curriculum approaches.

But the AMET has identified “serous problems with the scholarship” of the review, including that many of the references do not support the points that Ofsted has made, and is calling for it to be withdrawn.

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Among the AMET’s concerns are that nearly half of the sources used by Ofsted were published before the current national curriculum was introduced, including “a book from 1939 used to illustrate a historical point”.

The complaint states: “This can result in discussing practices that no longer occur. [For example] choosing a study from 1988 for a statement related to computer use seems ill-advised because of the fast rate of change in technology and the huge differences in children’s familiarity with computers.”

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The AMET says it began to investigate the review after it noticed “problems with certain references” - before its team of experts spent several weeks going through all 201 footnotes and 307 references thoroughly, reading each source to check whether each backed up the corresponding Ofsted statement.

While many of the sources were only accessible behind pay walls, many AMET members work in universities so had access to a large range of university libraries and were able to use them to access many of the sources.

The AMET also says it was contacted by several authors who outlined how they felt their work had been “misused”.

It says one single source which involved research with four children in the United States should not have been used for making a general point for UK education.

The complaint states: “Small scale studies are often useful for looking at an issue in depth but their conclusions cannot be assumed to apply to all situations. A research review would normally highlight some details about the study being cited so that the reader would be able to judge the strength of the claim. That has not been done in this review and it is only by tracking down and reading the individual studies that this can be determined.”

While the complaint welcomes the fact that the review uses sources from “a wide range of countries”, including from high-performing countries in East Asia, it says it is “surprising” that more than three times this number of references came from the USA, which “has not been a consistently high-performing country” in international comparisons such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss) studies.

It states: “There were far more citations relating to the USA than there were to England/the UK. The rationale for this was not clear.”

It adds: “AMET, the Association of Mathematics Education Teachers, has identified some serious problems with the scholarship in the recent Ofsted Research Review series: Mathematics document…As many of our members are involved in research, as well as setting and marking academic assignments, we take scholarship very seriously.

“We teach students how to compile arguments, use sources with criticality and reference their work. When people read a paper they need to be able to trust that the references cited support the point that is being made.

“Unfortunately, our analysis of the Mathematics Research Review has shown that many of the references do not support the points that Ofsted has made. We emphasise that this complaint is not about the content of the report but on the poor match between the content and the references which are used to support it.”

Ofsted has been contacted for comment.