Why we built it
School computing rooms are a tough environment for code tools: locked-down machines, strict web filters, mixed experience levels, and a teacher who needs every pupil running the same lesson in two minutes flat. Most coding tools weren't built for that. RunPy is.
We've taught with offline and online IDEs. Neither felt right. Offline meant install headaches, version mismatches, and the dreaded “but it works on mine.” Online options were either too clunky for a fast-paced classroom, didn't give teachers the visibility they actually need to support learning, and did not provide an easy way for students to save their work.
So we set out to build the IDE we wished we had.
What that looks like
Python runs in the browser — no installs, no admin rights, no setup time eaten out of the lesson. Teachers see what every pupil is doing through a live class dashboard, which means real support, not guesswork. Shared snippets let a teacher push code examples to the whole room in one click to support those lower ability students. And the whole thing is built to feel seamless rather than something pupils have to fight against before they can write a single line of code.
It's an online IDE with the features that actually support teaching and learning: visibility of student work, the ability to run and test code as a teacher, leave feedback on code, and a workflow that fits the pace and constraints of a real classroom.