are my gcse grades good enough for oxford?

honestly it depends on the school u went to. Oxford weights GCSEs quite heavily but in the context of the school you went to. You need to be at the very least in the top half of your year group and ideally well into the top 10%

thanks for the advice! I went to a kinda below average state school and was quite near the top of my year group in terms of the actual grades I got. Do you think they would perhaps take that into consideration?
I’m also eligible for free school meals etc but I’m not sure if oxford really pays much attention to that sort of contextual data so that might be kinda irrelevant idk

then your GCSEs should be on the right course. While they're not the strongest in regards to 'oxbridge grades' they do take your school into account because getting good grades at a school like that would be so much harder than a really well equipped school like Eton. The contextual data will not hurt your application, as any university will pay a little more attention to those applications.

I know that Oxford weights academic achievement very strongly so make sure you have excellent results in any prelim tests and that should put you in good stead

To begin with, as usually stated, Oxford emphasises GCSEs more than Cambridge, so if your GCSEs are relatively weaker it's usually a better idea to focus on Cambridge. However both consider your grades in context, and if you are eligible for free school lunches this is I believe normally one of the contextual flags they consider, so your GCSE grades may be considered better in that context than you might otherwise believe.

Even beside that, for Oxford it does vary somewhat between courses anyway. Generally if there is a pre-interview admissions assessment, this will often count for a lot - so doing very well in e.g. the PAT may ameliorate weaker GCSE grades. Of course this does vary; while medicine does also take account of the BMAT, GCSEs are still quite important (and for medicine, your GCSEs by themselves are probably not that competitive; I don't know how much the contextual factors may weight that though).

I think in view of the contextual flag, and the fact that you could potentially do extremely well in the ELAT and that may outweight weaker GCSEs anyway (along with the fact that ELL at Oxford interivews a relatively high proportion of applicants anyway) it is certainly a possibility. That said, I might still be inclined to recommend Cambridge as an alternative consideration just to be on the "safe side" as I think it's very likely you would be interviewed and "in the running" from the start provided you are predicted A*AA.

Is there a particular aspect of the course at Oxford that appeals to you more than at Cambridge? Bearing in mind if you're particularly interested in English philology (i.e. Old/Middle English) you can take medieval literature courses at Cambridge and I believe borrow the relevant language papers from the ASNAC tripos. That said, if your interest is particularly in that medieval period, ASNAC would probably be the more appealing course even over the course II ELL at Oxford anyway!

I completely second this!! got offered a place this year with pretty mediocre gcses (state school etc.) but did well in the test. you'll be fine