In the article, the formation of pragmatic competence is considered as a factor in the formation of communicative competence of schoolchildren. And also considered the questions of how pragmatic competence affects the development of polite speech culture of schoolchildren. Many recent studies emphasize the importance of forming pragmatic competence along with communicative competence as an important part of the language learning program. This is the result of a comparative analysis of the level of students who have a relatively good command of the common language, but who have shortcomings in the correct interpretation of messages and intentions in conversations. The formation of pragmatic competence is explained on the basis of the theoretical analysis of concepts closely related to the components of communicative competence, such as polite speech acts and strategies of politeness. Important indicators of the formation of the culture of polite speech are shown in the article, methods of formation of pragmatic competence are presented.