How much weight should my son's friends and the daily journey carry when we choose a secondary school?

At the second open evening, my son asked where the bus stopped before he asked about the science rooms. "Ben is going to the other one," he said on the way home.

We're choosing secondary-school preferences in England. One school is a fifteen-minute walk away, and several children from his primary class expect to apply there. The other has a workshop that excited him and a broader choice of clubs at the visit. The journey we tried took forty-five minutes each way.

My partner thinks we're letting an eleven-year-old's friendship worries decide too much. I think the ordinary Tuesday matters alongside the impressive evening. We haven't checked whether the workshop club runs every week, whether beginners can join, or how he would get home afterwards.

How do we compare the schools without making him responsible for the final decision? I don't want to dismiss his friends as a childish concern, or choose a long commute for opportunities he might never actually use.