EEA Migrant Worker status- any guidance, regulations?

Thanks, hypocriticaljap.
After some quick legal research (studying European Union Law has finally paid off!), I have the following observations:

- First, whether the way the Migrant Worker team now interpret EU law is correct is at least doubtful; it is true that the ECJ has said that for a person to qualify as a "worker" he or she has to be in genuine, effective employment that is not marginal or ancillary (each of these terms has specific legal meaning); but exactly what it means in practice is not clear and is for national courts to apply on facts of each case; so my advice for anyone in the same situation as mine (but who perhaps has more than 3 months at university to go) would be to, having appealed their decision, to challenge (or at least threaten to challenge) it before a court.

- Second, perhaps an even stronger argument would be to argue that the change in the way student finance authorities interpret EU law- and the fact that they use this interpretation to refuse funding to students who have satisfied the criteria as set out by their local authorities (i.e. they have remained in employment- even for a small number of hours a week)- breaches the principle of legal certainty, whose importance in this context the European Court of Justice has stressed. As I mentioned, it seems extremely unfair to tell someone who's in the middle of their studies to say "now we interpret the rules differently and so we won't give you any more money even though you satisfy the rules as we initially explained them to you" and it seems the law will support this conclusion.

- Finally, I have now realised that I have an even easier route to get full student funding- I started uni after residing and working in the UK for two years; I am now in my fourth year of my course; I have therefore been resident in this country for more than five years and as such have "permanent resident" status (Article 16(1), Directive 2004/38/EC) and am entitled to equal treatment with UK nationals (Article 24(1)), including the right to maintenance aid for studies (Article 24(2)). When filling in the PN1 form this year I didn't realise this and incorrectly stated that I do now have a "settled status" (which includes "permanent residence" ).

Hope this helps someone.