Too many school children are being "wrapped in cotton wool" and schools are not letting them experience failure, contradicting reality, where not everything goes your way, according to a senior school principal in the Western Australia public school system.

Armando Giglia, president of the Western Australian Secondary School Executives Association and principal of Butler College in north Perth, said he would like to see federal and state leaders developing a more realistic strategy for education which included letting students develop resilience and resistance.