I've just seen this and my heart goes out to you. It is such a low punch for them to pull - these are children for goodness' sake!
As you will have sees, our place was withdrawn last year after 15 weeks and we had one week to appeal. It nearly brought me to a break down with what Walsall Council did. But we won our appeal, thank God common decency prevailed, and we went in armed with a water tight case, thanks to hours of work from both us and others on here- I salute Etienne and Sally-Anne.
I know you will be feeling sick and in despair right now, but believe me, survival mode will kick in and you will find the strength to put forward your case. I will message you, but here is an overview of what we did:
We never told our son what was happening.
We had lots of help and support off complete strangers whose kindness will never leave me.
We exhausted every avenue of complaint: councillors, MP, school, LA, CEO, regulatory bodies, chair of governors (apart from the media).
We tried to park emotion and somehow focus on wronging a right.
We gathered evidence, supporting material and references to other cases. We prepared a tight appeal in very little time.
We went into our appeal in the strongest position we could be on paper (I was exhausted) and we could see that the clerk and the panel were aghast at what had happened.
Despite the fact that we thought they (the school and LA) were morally and legally wrong, we still had to put forward a case for why this school was the school that suited our child (arguing for the school) and this was something we had included heavily in our case to give them no grounds in which to dismiss us. Never overlook the importance of arguing 'for' the preferred school (not against the other school).
We presented our case, bearing in mind that we had already been through one very different appeal to our unsuccessful gs appeal, which was very business like and positive. For this one, I read out our statement (it was important for me to do this). But then the emotion came, as I was spent. Don't be afraid to show this genuine emotion, just make sure the factual side is presented too.
We won!
He started the school in September - and after all that......he was offered a different grammar school place and left(but that is another story).
I am really happy to share with you anything that might help, in terms of our case or any advice.