It was founded a decade ago as a way of addressing a chronic skills shortage and lack of accessibility and diversity in the software industry.
But now School of Code in Birmingham is coming to an end as it teaches its final group of students.
Founder, chief executive and teacher Chris Meah will hang up his metaphorical pen and paper in March and embark on a new chapter in his career.
The school teaches people over 16 weeks how to write software code and has been responsible for launching countless careers in the tech industry at a time when the sector continues to bemoan a lack of trained professionals joining their ranks
At its core lies two key principles - courses are free to attend and open to all, regardless of age, working background and level of skill and knowledge.
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Chris told BusinessLive why he felt now was the right moment to call time on the school after a decade of education.
"The last bootcamp has been coming for a while because I feel it's time to do something new and it's actually lasted a lot longer than I thought it would," he joked.
"Everything I have ever done has been recorded but we have just never released it before so I will put it online so people can still benefit and learn from it.
"A couple of years ago, I tried to see if there was a way I could hand the school over to other people to carry on but actually it's entangled with me."
The 36 year old said he now planned to return to working in artificial intelligence (AI), something he studied as part of his degree at University of Birmingham.
"School of Code started as a project to help people and has since scaled up but I was always going to go back into AI," he explained.
"It's fine with all these new jobs coming but if your job goes as a result of AI how do you get into a new one? That's where School of Code came from.
"My focus will be building and researching AI and trying to help people learn about it because I have ten years as an educator now. It would be good to build something that can help people.
"There is tons of potential with AI, you could have a doctor in your pocket who knows everything about you and your medical history.
"I'll be exploring how we can use AI but do it safely and teach more people so they can understand what's coming down the pipeline."
The initial germ of an idea for School of Code came to Chris while on his computer science degree when he noticed a lack of diversity among the people on his course.
He then decided to set up the school in 2015 as a side project while completing his PhD programme in a bid to address skills shortages, the looming rise of AI and automation and ensure a wider range of people had access to careers in coding.
His theory was he could take anyone and turn them into a coder via an intensive bootcamp.
More than 1,000 students have since passed through the doors and the school expanded beyond its Birmingham birthplace, running up to three courses per year.
Since the covid-19 pandemic, teaching has left the old classroom in Digbeth and moved entirely online, removing location as a barrier to access.
Among the varied people to have tackled the bootcamp are a baker, musician, warehouse worker, dancer and probation officer among many others.
Income was generated via fees paid by businesses which hired graduates alongside grant funding from sponsors such as the Department for Education and West Midlands Combined Authority.
At its peak, staffing levels hit 20 and School of Code the scheme previously run by BusinessLive's publisher Reach.
It has even hired some of its own graduates to become teachers on the course.
Looking back, what are Chris' reflections on his journey running the school? "I still get messages weekly from alumni and that means a lot to me, saying things like ‘It changed my life'," he said.
"They took the risk on something which no-one thought would work. People who went on the first course thought it was a scam because it was free but now there is a community and many of them come back to tutor or mentor other students.
"There are a couple of thousand people in the community and this is my number one takeaway from my time running School of Code.
"We proved you could take anyone and train them up to have careers they never thought they would have, all in a relatively short space of time."
