Language competence refers to knowledge of and ability to use language resources to form well-structured messages. Grammatical competence is one part of language competence. The eighth graders of Croatian primary schools are expected to have reached A2 level according to the Common European Framework (CEFR) and Croatian National Educational Standard (“Hrvatski nacionalni obrazovni standard”) (HNOS) for this age group. The results of the study that attempted to investigate the eighth primary school graders’ attainment in English as a foreign language have shown that the learners have done better at the receptive than at the productive level. The pupils had difficulties with particular tenses and some other grammatical structures. The pupils’ marks in English do not always correspond to the success achieved on the test. Most of the pupils in the eighth grade of primary school have reached A2 level of CEFR.