This contribution builds on the RDT project: “Efficiency and quality in the acquisition of skills characterize the rural school, is this model transferable to other types of schools ?". The main aim of this international research is go deeply on the process of acquiring competences in the rural school, to learn how these competences situated within the framework of a participative-active methodology, and which give special attention to cultural and social diversity, could have transferable didactic and organizational components for ordinary (urban and suburban) schools. We analysed, how participative methodology, is linked to the acquisition of competences that is being carried out in some rural schools in Chile, Spain, France, Portugal and Uruguay. On the basis of what we had found on best practices of teaching in rural schools, we also designed a proposal on teaching components that might be possibly useful to other types of schools, in order to improve learning. In conclusion, this research generates new knowledge about multi-grade schooling and provides rigour to a field of knowledge currently based more on perceptions and assumptions.